St Tudor's, a Grade II listed church located high on a mountain top in remote, south Wales, is to host a powerful exhibition about the sacred force of nature. The Faculty Divine brings together William ‘Islwyn’ Thomas, the 19th century Welsh poet and Methodist minister; and contemporary photographer Fergus Thomas.
When Fergus Thomas first moved to a small village in Caerphilly from London in the autumn of 2021, he was deeply affected by the surrounding natural landscape, stating, “"I am very grateful to this remote, wooded valley. There's something very special about spending hours absorbed in its sights and sounds."
He discovered another artist had felt the force of the same landscape some 170 years earlier: William "Islwyn" Thomas, the poet and Methodist minister. His best-known poem Y Storm (The Storm) was written after the sudden death of his fiancee in 1853, at the age of 20. The poem, over 9000 lines long, talks of the sacred animating force that flows through nature whilst grappling with existential questions around mourning, death and spirituality.
It’s through this lens that Fergus Thomas began making images of the Sirhowy valley, soon gravitating to the river that runs through it. For Fergus, the river was essential to the vitality of the natural world, but also bears the scars of the heavy industrial history of the region.
St Tudor's Church, situated on Mynyddislwyn, the mountain near Islwyn's home and the name he took as a poet, is to showcase Fergus Thomas' large-scale photographs of the Sirhowy valley and river. In the sacred space of the church, both men's work come together.
This new exhibition is described as “a multi-layered response of two artists to a very particular place”.
“We’re so excited to be opening up our church as the centre for this exhibition. We hope it will encourage young people to be involved in the history of this area, which is plentiful. We welcome the modern world as well, and in Fergus’ photographs there is a powerful feeling of flowing from the past to the present and onto the future.”
The Faculty Divine will host an opening event at 6pm - 8pm on the 18th of November at St Tudor's Church, Mynyddislwyn in Blackwood NP12 2BG. Book a free ticket here
The exhibition will then be showing until the 22 of November 2022 - 10am - 4pm.
An expanded version will later open in CULT VR Lab, Cardiff, where The Faculty Divine will be displayed alongside previous work made by Fergus Thomas in Wales.
The Faculty Divine is curated by Isaac Blease with art direction by Alejandro Actin (IC Visual Lab).
Both exhibitions are supported by the Arts Council of Wales, the Cwm a Mynydd Rural Development Programme for Caerphilly and Blaenau Gwent through the Welsh Governments Rural Communities Rural Development Programme 2014-2020.
Fergus Thomas is a British photographer based in Wales. A graduate of documentary photography, Newport, South Wales, his long-term photographic bodies of work explore the intersection between nature and culture. His project "Colville" was published in Granta magazine, long-listed for the Magnum graduate award, exhibited at Warsaw photo-days, in Poland and in the Ian parry scholarship exhibition in London. His work has featured in the Telegraph magazine. His most recent exhibition was a group show in Newport Lab, in September 2021. He currently lectures at the University of South Wales.
You can view more of Fergus’ work on his website www.fergusthomas.com
There will be a special event associated with the exhibition as follows:
Historian Dr David Hale will be leading an historical walk of the Sirhowy Valley on 19 November. Participats will meet in the Sirhowy Valley country carpark at 10am.
Main entrance is signposted off the A4048 at Crosskeys.
By bus: Service 56 Newport to Tredegar. By bike: Route 47 NCN.
Nearest train station - Crosskeys (16 minute walk).