Capturing the spirit of place
Cardi -based artist Sue Roberts is leaving small clay gures in public places for people to nd. She told Jenny White about her ‘Figure in the Landscape’ project, which features in a new Welsh Group show opening on Tuesday
YOU could nd one anywhere. ey pop up at ancient sites but have also been discovered in urban places – and while they rst started appearing in Wales, they have since travelled all over the world.
Mine, unusually, arrived by post, sent so I could photograph it for this article. She’s a small, palm-sized gure – a clay woman, reminiscent of the Venus of Willendorf – and she came with a tag asking me to take her to a place that is special to me, photograph her, and send the photo to a Facebook page run by her creator, the artist Sue Roberts.
I took her to a spot in my local park that I visit almost daily on my lunchtime walk. e task of photographing her made me pause and consider the location, what it means to me, and why this little goddess gure seemed so at home there.
It was a small but profound creative and contemplative moment, made all the better because of its connection to similar moments that are taking place all over the world. Sue has been creating these little gures for over a decade, having come up with the idea when taking her children on trips to historic places in Wales.
“I wanted to share the experience, not only with the children but also with other people, and I wondered what they thought of those types of landscape,” she says. “I came up with the idea of placing a little gure in a landscape with a label attached to it asking the nder to take a picture of it in their favourite place and post it on Facebook. And that’s how it started.”
To date she has placed 50 of the gures, but they don’t all make it to the Facebook page.
“Some of them will likely never be found, and some people just take them and keep them, which is ne.
“Photographing them is not something you have to do; it’s something I’m sharing, and if you don’t want to do it, you can just have my gift.
“I can put them anywhere; one was by the fountain in the eld outside the museum in Cardi . It was picked up by an Australian student who was working in Aberystwyth and had gone to Cardi for the day. He took his o to Australia on many adventures, and he even went to the Solomon Islands where he gave it to a little boy who was standing there in a loincloth, holding a spear. e boy spoke no English, but said, ‘Mama’ when he was handed it.”
is delighted her because the theme of motherhood is at the very heart of the project. Sue grew up without a mother and has spent a lot of time pondering what it means to have one, and what the role of mother means.
“I started to research motherhood and mothering, which was all very interesting. You might think that because I’ve had children I know what it’s all about, but I don’t, and I wanted to know what other people feel, and what it has meant in history. All those things combined, like a river, and it came from there.”
e theme extends into her wider work as an artist, which is focused on the female form. She paints and draws, but is mainly a sculptor, working in mediums ranging from plaster to iron and bronze. Her work seeks to answer questions about the female experience, from childhood to motherhood and beyond.
“I look at feelings and emotions. I’m not looking for a perfect gure, and I never use the model, because I don’t want them to be a particular person, I want them to be everybody,” she says.
She’s therefore pleased when visitors to her exhibitions talk to her about their own lives and how they relate to the work.
She will exhibiting in Cardi from Tuesday, July 2, as one of ve artists in the latest show by e Welsh Group, which is holding a series of eight exhibitions, each on a di erent theme, in locations across Wales in 2024-25.
e theme for the new show is Genius Loci, meaning “spirit of place”, so Sue has – ttingly – contributed a collection of little goddess gures from her “Figure in the Landscape” project.
“I like to work big, so working small was quite interesting,” she says. “It opened my eyes to the fact that you can still get the same feelings and emotions that you would from a large piece in a tiny, tiny piece. One of the pieces is a centimetre and it still contains those feelings.”
e show also includes some of her larger sculptures, featured alongside paintings of Wales by Veronica Gibson, photographs of the abandoned slate quarry at Dinorwic, Caernarfonshire by Chris Evans, mixed media close ups of nature by Angela Hoppe Kingston and paintings of Welsh hillsides by the exhibition’s curator Chris Gri n.
“Certain artists are attracted to certain places, and we’re investigating that in this show,” he says. “ese ve artists all have their places and are all very di erent. Angela Hoppe Kingston goes to her garden for shapes and colours; Chris Evans goes up to Dinorwic; I deal with the hillsides in the Welsh valleys; and Sue Robertson is interested in everybody’s secret place, their favourite place.
“What’s become apparent while putting this show together is that it’s a celebration of creativity, and the di erent ways that we respond to nature, and to the world.”
I wanted to share the experience, not only with the children but also with other people, and I wondered what they thought of those types of landscape
Genius Loci opens at Oriel Canfas, 44a Glamorgan Street, Cardi from July 2-20.
www.thewelshgroup-art.com