Guided by Light: Brecon and Beyond is a new 3-artist group exhibition at Found Gallery in Brecon - including photography by Ceri Leigh.
Ceri, a former Exhibitions Manager (Design & Conservation) at the Natural History Museum in London, has been in therapy for the best part of the past 10 years since an accident on her way home one day from work left her with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and unable to walk for a year and a half.
Ceri now suffers with insomnia, severe flashbacks and dissociative paralysing seizures which prevent her from leaving the house unaccompanied and unable to drive a car or cook in case she loses all sense of reality and collapses to the floor. But the 58-year-old, who now lives in the Usk Valley, has found photographing the beautiful floodplains of the Brecon Beacons the best medicine for calming her anxious brain.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world, Ceri made photographs of the wildlife she watched from her window every day in 2020, recording a few hundred species. The photographs, made with an iPhone, have now been published as a book by Whitefox titled ‘Life on the Floodplain: A Garden Wildlife Diary 2020’.
“Watching wildlife calms me as I find it has a meditative quality. Taking photographs on my mobile phone distracts me from the anxiety of PTSD and it grounds me in reality. I encourage everyone to observe their own environment, as even in cities, nature is present. It’s surprising how much wildlife can be seen if you take the time to tune in and look around.”
The exhibition runs from Wednesday 4 August - Saturday 4 September 2021
Found Gallery is normally open Tuesday- Saturday 10am - 4.30pm
(please check opening status and any entry restrictions with gallery before travelling)
Found Gallery, 1 Bulwark, Brecon LD3 7LB
telephone: 07736 062849
Images © Ceri Leigh. Used here with permission