IMAGES Courtesy of Darcy Whent
“Obviously she’s another Welsh diva, and I love that for us,” says Bristol-based artist Darcy Whent of her new collaboration with designer Rhi Dancey. “A lot of my work comes back to folklore and Welsh heritage, and the way that our stories are told, and she completely gets that.”
The pair first connected when Dancey sent a message over Instagram. “I had to double check,” Whent laughs. “Is this actually Rhi Dancey? But it was, and it felt completely right.”
The collection is a tactile merging of painting, fashion and folklore, featuring two designs. The first, the Nightstalker Longsleeve, is a patchwork of three paintings, featuring a striking red-eyed cat across the bodice. The second, and Whent’s unexpected favourite, is a reversible vest emblazoned with two original paper-cut designs.
“Everybody’s favourite is the cat with the two mixed sleeves,” she says. “Rightfully so, but my favourite is the reversible vest because I’m used to my paintings having a high-impact, but doing the paper cuts feels so much more delicate and tactile. I was worried that a lot of people would look past them, because they’re not like these big works, but I’m really glad Rhi saw something in them and thought they would translate brilliantly onto the fabric, and they look incredible.”
The collaboration, which launched in late October, is already at limited availability. “I actually couldn’t believe how well they translated,” she says of her paintings. “I see myself as a fine arty farty painter, so to be able to see my works in a more commercial setting… I was really surprised at how well it felt quite universal, from something that feels quite singular.”
When people see my work, they always ask me if I’m a mum. I tell them I’m not, but my work challenges the idea of the mother role – that the mother is not a person, it is a role, and you can find it in almost anyone.
Whent’s practice explores memory, motherhood and the emotional inheritances passed down through generations. “The biggest talking point in my practice is my relationship with my mum,” she explains. “When people see my work, they always ask me if I’m a mum. I tell them I’m not, but my work challenges the idea of the mother role – that the mother is not a person, it is a role, and you can find it in almost anyone.”
Whent shares that she grew up with a tumultuous relationship with her mother, who struggled with schizoaffective disorder. “When I was little, my sisters and I had no idea she was struggling with this illness. It was concealed from us,” she says. “We thought that this person that she is, is just our mum, and it’s completely normal. We didn’t realise until we were in our teens that she was actually suffering from an illness.”
“My older sister is 27 and my little sister is 20, so I’m a proper middle child,” she adds.
Now in her 20s, she reflects on the mothering role she and her sisters took on for one another. “We think women are bound to that role [motherhood], but a lot of people aren’t really made to be mothers, and that’s absolutely fine. I had to find that relationship through my sisters and through the other women around me. Lots of my friends are like my weird little mummies – and I think that’s fine. I’m sometimes a mother to people and my friends are mothers to me. It’s all about how that role shifts.”
The union of Whent’s paintings and Dancey’s designs goes beyond aesthetic taste, speaking directly to the collective kinship Welsh creatives have. Whent explains that the pair bonded over basing their respective practices outside of their home country, with Dancey splitting her time between Berlin and London, while Whent has based her studio in Bristol. “We both know what it takes to be creative in a working-class environment,” she explains. “And we still feel like outsiders [in Wales], even though this is our land. A lot of the talent feels like it has to go elsewhere if you want to be seen, if you want to be understood – you can’t stay in Wales because you’re told that there’s nothing for you.”
[Rhi and I] both know what it takes to be creative in a working-class environment, and we still feel like outsiders [in Wales], even though this is our land. A lot of the talent feels like it has to go elsewhere if you want to be seen, if you want to be understood – you can’t stay in Wales because you’re told that there’s nothing for you.
The collaborative collection has also reignited Whent’s love of textile work. “I’ve always been interested in working with applique, because I think applique is almost like painting with fabric,” she shares. “I’ve always wanted to make massive applique tapestries, it’s just figuring out where and when to get the time.”
When she’s not on residency – most recently at the Asteria Artist House, Casa Tersìcore Roseto Valfortore – Whent works from her Bristol-based studio, a space she describes as “a bit of a bomb at the minute,” with paint streaked across the floor. She typically works at night, relishing the solitude to develop ideas alongside her full-time job.
Whent’s work is rooted in her family history, and the fractured nostalgia that comes from reinterpreting childhood experiences with adult awareness. “My work is all about when you go to the outside world – you only realise that your normal isn’t normal until you compare,” she says astutely. “I remember I would go to my friends and see their relationship with their mum, and I would think, ‘fuck, my relationship with my mum isn’t normal’. It wasn’t until I witnessed the outside world that I realised that.”
This interplay between personal truth and social comparison underpins Whent’s fascination with mythmaking and narrative invention. “I talk a lot about myth, and I talk a lot about the idea of being a telltale,” she continues. “I would always get told off in school for being a little telltale. [My work is] about that child who’s being punished for speaking out, and the tension between truth and fabrication.” This year, she explored the theme further in her solo exhibition Tell Tales at Centrespace Gallery in Bristol, immersing viewers in her personal storytelling.
This tension explains her frequent use of animal motifs, including cats, dogs and horses. Whent cites Portuguese visual artist Paula Rego as one of her biggest inspirations, who frequently used monkeys as the subjects of her work, rather than people, as “you can do things to monkeys that you can’t do to humans – it doesn’t feel as brutal,” Whent recounts. “In a way, I use a lot of dogs, horses, and any animals that can be domesticated, because everything that was happening with me and my mum happened in a domestic setting.”
Horses and doggies are really important because I often think about when you have a dog and it’s quite naughty and likes to bite people – you’ll usually say, ‘you’ve got to blame the owner’. The reason the dog is behaving like that is because of the surroundings it’s been brought up in. To me, that’s very similar to how children respond to their surroundings.
Whent often returns to the domestic stage in her paintings, a recurring site of both comfort and chaos. “The house is my stage for a lot of my works,” she says. “Horses and doggies are really important because I often think about when you have a dog and it’s quite naughty and likes to bite people – you’ll usually say, ‘you’ve got to blame the owner’. The reason the dog is behaving like that is because of the surroundings it’s been brought up in. To me, that’s very similar to how children respond to their surroundings.”
That connection between behaviour and environment feeds into a deeper anxiety that runs through much of her practice – the fear of repetition, or of inheriting what she’s tried to escape. She wonders aloud whether we can ever outgrow our beginnings: am I only destined to become the one thing I didn’t want to become because of my surroundings? Painting, for her, becomes a way to test that idea in motion, a medium where cycles can be reworked and softened. “With painting, it’s so malleable and so fluid, I can play with it. Every time I revisit those motifs, it changes ever so slightly.”
She describes the act of painting as a kind of proof-making; a way to pin down something fleeting. “Every time I paint, I bring something that isn’t tangible – it now becomes tangible through paint. That’s the only proof I have. It’s trying to understand whether we can take it as truth, as fact, or whether it’s just a lovely, beautiful fabrication.”
Whent’s imagery is filled with animal and bodily motifs, recurring symbols that blur the boundaries between instinct, nurture and survival. Hair, for instance, has become a particularly charged presence in her work. “Hair is a massive motif in my work,” she says. “I feel like women are more dog-like, and I don’t mean that in a nasty way,” she asserts. “I mean it with the utmost respect. We do what we have to do to survive. We’re not these little pampered pooches. We are these grey, nurturing dogs that are quite literally trying to survive – but we want love. We want that nurturing, and we’re waiting for those people to show us that love. I don’t feel like that need for maternal figures ever goes. We just expect to become one and not receive.”
As a young woman in a decidedly male-dominated industry, Whent is conscious of how gender expectations shape both her subject matter and her reception. She says she’s always wanted to make work “filled with narrative” – stories that, though rooted in her own life, “feel like a universal childhood.” Her paintings trace the uneasy threshold between girlhood and womanhood, a space she describes as being “stripped away from us too quickly.”
I want to highlight the shift between womanhood and girlhood. It’s feeling like I had to grow up too quickly due to the climate and the societal ideas that we live around. That’s what I’m trying to capture: that in between ‘I’m not ready to be a mother, however, I am no longer this innocent girl with no responsibilities’.
“I want to highlight the shift between womanhood and girlhood,” she says. “It’s feeling like I had to grow up too quickly due to the climate and the societal ideas that we live around. That’s what I’m trying to capture: that in between ‘I’m not ready to be a mother, however, I am no longer this innocent girl with no responsibilities’. My relationship with my mum meant I had to become that mother figure, even though I was still watching Hannah Montana.”
Her work’s emotional directness has not gone unnoticed. She has already earned nods from the Freelands Painting Prize, the Homiens and ACS Studio Prizes, and took home Delphian Gallery’s Open Call award earlier this year. She’s currently showing new work at London’s Unit 1 Gallery, while awaiting the results of the Ingram Prize.
Even as her work gains attention, Whent admits she’s still learning to find her footing. “I think there’s a hunger to always prove I deserve to be here,” she adds. “It’s really difficult as a young girl doing it – it almost feels like I’m doing it on my own, but I think I’m just going down the lazy river and I’m allowing whatever hits me to hit me.”
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