Brynley Odu Davies Nik Roche
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Caitlin Flood-Molyneux: the Valleys painter making a splash in London’s art world
This Welsh painter’s (and Buzz Culture graduate’s) new exhibition Suspended In Time, a solo presentation of recent work, offers a personal reflection on how we resonate with memories, in particular with regard to trauma, loss and love. Megan Evans was keen to find out more.
Meet Caitlin Flood-Molyneux (she/they), whose unique artistic craft combines visual imagery such as collage and abstract painting to help contextualise the complicated nature of, and connection with, one’s past experiences.
Flood-Molyneux comes off as immensely passionate
relationship with painting and crafting art, they explain, “was driven by my mum, as I disliked school. I always wanted to be creative, and knew it was what I wanted to do.” After studying at Pembrokeshire College and changing courses halfway through their degree to Fine Art, an Erasmus year in Norway “was where things started to shift in my practice, and a stronger focus on collages and painting particularly.”
during our conversation. Their
Though Flood-Molyneux still lives in the Valleys, latest solo exhibition Suspended In Time was a recent feature at London’s Fitzrovia Gallery. “People ask if I live in London, as I do so much work there!” Another notable work in the English capital was a mural made for a Pride edition of the Christie’s Lates events, incorporating imagery from the Stonewall riots and posters throughout the LGBTQ+ movement’s history.
Storytelling, says the artist, was “a catalyst for everything starting. I wanted to draw the
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importance in a public way, and included personal paintings in there as well. All my work is reflective; I wanted to take that, and make it universal, to reflect on the history, as I do with my own history. Reflection is a healthy way of creating something – as humans like to reflect on the past – and unpacking that in an artistic way.”
Our conversation turns to the notion of maintaining an appetite
making art, and sharing it with the wider world. “I find it interesting,” Flood-Molyneux says, “that people find things to reflect on through looking at my work, and can see things differently to me – there’s no right or wrong.” In a broader sense, art’s power as a means of emotional release remains amazing: for Flood-Molyneux, this is why they work in hospitals and community centres in areas from the Welsh countryside to the big city, in order to facilitate the need for good work for others to see and enjoy.
for creating and
of work which helped them grow and flourish their pieces.
Proto-pop
and English abstract artist Gillian Ayres are prominent in Flood-Molyneux’s contemporary influences. The combination of mediums – screen printing, collage, painting – that Rauchenberg deployed helped shape the young Welsh artist’s perspective for their own craft.
art painter Robert Rauchenberg
Flood-Molyneux also puts their artistic ability back into the community, hosting collage workshops. “It’s so much fun to see the creativity, and it’s so accessible. I can do it from my home, and you can tell a story with the work. I love that feeling that people can relate to the work, through the series of different images. Putting it all together, and putting that in a painting, is just so fabulous.”
In time, this spurred the confidence to produce exhibition-worthy work which – in addition to Flood-Molyneux’s first large-scale show in London (“a great scene – such a milestone”) – would appear in New York, Nayoga and Hong Kong. One of their most significant pieces is Ambush, shown as part of Suspended In Time: this painting was the first in a collection
At the time of speaking, meanwhile, “There is an exhibition in Blackwater Gallery in Cardiff Bay, opening on 23rd June with two other Welsh artists [Eleri Haf Davies and Ian Mackenzie]”. Needless to say, that’s very much one to check out this month.
Info:
linktr.ee/caitlinfloodmolyneux Arwain, Blackwater Gallery, Cardiff Bay, until Fri 4 Aug. Info:
blackwatergallery.co.uk
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