Visions of the Valley
Photographer Fergus Thomas’ new exhibition – in the evocative setting of a historic hillside church – reflects the powerful impact the natural surroundings had on him and the poet who trod the valley before him, writes Jenny White...
WHEN photographer Fergus Thomas discovered he was tired of London and decided to head to a remote Welsh valley, he had no idea just how much the area would impact his work – or that his work would become entwined with that of a renowned Welsh bard.
Settling in Cwmfelinfach in a remote valley near Caerphilly, he became fascinated by the river which runs through the valley and by a memorial to the 19th century Welsh poet and Methodist minister William ‘Islwyn’ Thomas, which he found at Babel Chapel in the village.
“I read about his life on the plaque and was taken with his story, specifically the line, ‘Islwyn’s ability to show people the beauty in common things gave him the title of sweet singer of Sirhowy,’” says Fergus.
William Thomas was born in Ynysddu, another small village in the Sirhowy Valley in 1832. A Methodist minister, he has been described as one of the greatest Welsh poets of the 19th century.
Using the name Islwyn, he won four bardic chairs and two other prizes for his poetry in local Eisteddfodau. Although he never had a chapel of his own, he was a regular preacher at Babel Chapel and was buried in the chapel’s churchyard after his death in 1878, at the age of just 46.
Thomas’ best-known poem is Y Storm (The Storm), written after the sudden death of his fiancée in 1853, at the age of 20. The poem, more than 9,000 lines long, talks of the sacred animating force that flows through nature while grappling with existential questions around mourning, death and spirituality.
It’s through this lens that Fergus began making images of the Sirhowy Valley and of the river, which, while essential to the natural vitality of the valley, also bears the scars of heavy industry.
“I’d been wanting to make a body of work about nature and landscape for a long time,” he says. “I felt I’d found the right place and it was the right time, particularly after discovering William Thomas’ poetry.
“I think his work affected my perception of the space. You can develop a relationship with people through their work, even if they are dead. There is a camaraderie, a kinship, between poets and artists alike. Because he was so tied to this area, I could feel his presence in the space – I could be seeing the same things as him and responding.”
He was especially drawn to the river and would go there every day and make images of it, even buying waders so he could go into the river and photograph it.
A major influence on his work is Mark Rothko, particularly the way in which he unites art and religion. This, and the influence of Islwyn, inspired Fergus to exhibit the work in a local church.
“I’ve visited the Mark Rothko chapel in Houston and I was very moved by how scale, colour and form can interact to transform a space and create a spiritual experience,” he says. “Looking at some of my initial images and considering Islwyn’s poetry, his relationship to a church, the kind of immersion I had within the river, the idea of a storm – all pointed towards large-scale images to transform a church space, within Islwyn’s landscape.”
The church in question is St Tudor’s Church, situated on Mynyddislwyn, the mountain near Islwyn’s home which gave him his bardic name. There has been a church on the site of St Tudor’s for at least 900 years. St Tudor’s was the ‘mother’ or lead church of the area in the 19th century and Islwyn was a regular visitor. Today, the church houses the bardic chair awarded to Islwyn at the Eisteddford Treherbert in 1877, for his poem, Y Nefoedd (The Heavens).
In the sacred space of the church, both men’s visions of the valley unite in a show titled The Faculty Divine. Printed hand
outs of Islwyn’s poetry are available to be enjoyed alongside Fergus’ brooding, intimate photographs of the river and the local landscape.
Fergus sees this not as a solo show, but as the multi-layered response of two artists to a very particular place. It also features objects belonging to Islwyn from the Winding House, the museum for Caerphilly Borough Council in Tredegar.
Besides Islwyn, Fergus credits curator Isaac Blease and art director Alejandro Actin with helping him to realise the ideas behind the exhibition, specifically the centrepiece 2.4 metre light box triptych of the river.
“I had an idea, a dream, but the way it’s been taken on by Alejandro and Isaac has made it develop in an exciting way,” he says.
“As any photographer knows, it’s hard not be overly protective of your images. They are like your children and you can have a protective instinct and that can end up stifling it. It’s important that you step back sometimes and let other people take it on. That was a definitely a process of adjusting, but I’m very happy to see it develop.”
A graduate of documentary photography from the University of South Wales, Newport, Fergus’ previous project, Colville, was published in Granta magazine, long-listed for the Magnum graduate award and exhibited both at Warsaw Photo Days in Poland and in the Ian Parry Scholarship Exhibition in London. His work has featured in the Telegraph magazine and he currently lectures at the University of South Wales.
This new body of work reflects Fergus’ ongoing exploration of the line where nature and culture meet – something that he feels can only be expressed in the form of poetry and the poetic image. His new photographs reflect his deep immersion in his surroundings – something that got literal when his digital camera dropped into the Sirhowy river and broke.
“I took it as a sign that I should just shoot it on film – so I just had one camera, one lens, one type of film and, for some images, a tripod,” he says.
The resulting exhibition is on show in its unique setting until November 22 from 10am to 4pm and an expanded version will later open in CULTVR Lab, Cardiff, where The Faculty Divine will be displayed alongside previous work made by Fergus in Wales.
Elizabeth Tomlin, St Tudor’s church warden, welcomes the exhibition to this unique space: “We’re so excited to be opening up our church as the centre for this exhibition,” she says. “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.”
For his part, Fergus is delighted to have discovered this particular corner of Wales and the poet who once inhabited it.
“I am very grateful to this remote, wooded valley. There’s something very special about spending hours absorbed in its sights and sounds,” he says.
“I hope to show people who are perhaps used to seeing the space, the landscape, in a certain way, a new way of seeing it. Just like Islwyn showed people the ‘beauty in common things.’ I hope that people catch a semblance of what I felt creating the work. That would be great.”
The Faculty Divine is supported by the Arts Council of Wales, the Cwm a Mynydd Rural Development Programme for Caerphilly and Blaenau Gwent through the Welsh Government’s Rural Communities Rural Development Programme 2014-2020.
For further information about the show, search for The Faculty Divine on Eventbrite.