Residency Dates
17 February – 3 March 2025
Artist Images
Residency Images
Testimonial
"Here, among the whispering grasses and the mythic hares, I have listened and been listened to.
In this rewilded stillness, breath moves not just between us as artists, but between all things - the trees exhaling what we take in, the earth breathing beneath our feet. Whilst at Xenia, I worked between textile, mosaics, watercolours, wax, and monoprints. Many bodily and vegetative references found their way into pieces - ties to the land and my wider interest in alchemy and transformation. Thoughts on eggs and seeds in relation to creation myths, breath as exchange, and birthing of new consciousness.
I knew I wanted to sculpt a body organ in wax while here as part of a new project but I hadn’t known what that would be. On the first day the land offered up a wonderful bodily fungi in the form of intestines. I read about intestines in myth and found that in Mesopotamian traditions, entrails were sometimes seen as a labyrinth - a passage to rebirth. A perfectly synchronistic link to themes I am exploring.
This place has been a gentle rhythm of exchange: ideas passed, inspiration rising and settling like mist. To have shared this space with fellow artists, with the rustling presence of the more-than-human world, is a gift I will carry forward.
With deep gratitude for this time of communion, renewal, and shared breath."
Bio
Born
1977,
West Midlands,
UK
About
Chantal Powell is a UK-based artist and educator living in rural West Dorset.
Her art practice explores the symbolic language of the unconscious and is informed by a PhD in social psychology and an ongoing study of Jungian theory and inner alchemy.
Over recent years, she has been researching alchemical manuscripts and notebooks from the 15th and 16th centuries. Weaving archetypal motifs from these sources alongside those from mythology and personal inner work, she uses a Jungian art-based research approach to facilitate our understanding of the human psyche.
Materiality and process are key to her practice, and she embraces a variety of mediums, including ceramics, glass, metal, textiles, and painting, to express the symbolic material within archetypal imagery.
Chantal has exhibited at galleries and institutions across the UK and internationally, including The Lightbox Museum, Woking; Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh/London; La Boulangerie, Paris; Guildhall Art Gallery, London; Orange County Museum of Art, California; and WW Gallery, Venice.
She is also the founder of the residency program Hogchester Arts in West Dorset and hosts the Jungian online book club and speaker program "The Red Book Club". She presents courses, talks and workshops on archetypal symbolism and psychological alchemy and is a faculty lecturer at Jung Archademy. She has co-curated exhibitions at Arusha Gallery in Bruton, The LightBox Museum in Woking, and Hogchester Arts in West Dorset.
For more information about Chantal, please visit www.chantalpowell.com.
Residency Dates
17 February – 3 March 2025
Artist Images
Residency images
Testimonial
"Here, among the whispering grasses and the mythic hares, I have listened and been listened to.
In this rewilded stillness, breath moves not just between us as artists, but between all things - the trees exhaling what we take in, the earth breathing beneath our feet. Whilst at Xenia, I worked between textile, mosaics, watercolours, wax, and monoprints. Many bodily and vegetative references found their way into pieces - ties to the land and my wider interest in alchemy and transformation. Thoughts on eggs and seeds in relation to creation myths, breath as exchange, and birthing of new consciousness.
I knew I wanted to sculpt a body organ in wax while here as part of a new project but I hadn’t known what that would be. On the first day the land offered up a wonderful bodily fungi in the form of intestines. I read about intestines in myth and found that in Mesopotamian traditions, entrails were sometimes seen as a labyrinth - a passage to rebirth. A perfectly synchronistic link to themes I am exploring.
This place has been a gentle rhythm of exchange: ideas passed, inspiration rising and settling like mist. To have shared this space with fellow artists, with the rustling presence of the more-than-human world, is a gift I will carry forward.
With deep gratitude for this time of communion, renewal, and shared breath."
Born
1977,
West Midlands,
UK
About
Chantal Powell is a UK-based artist and educator living in rural West Dorset.
Her art practice explores the symbolic language of the unconscious and is informed by a PhD in social psychology and an ongoing study of Jungian theory and inner alchemy.
Over recent years, she has been researching alchemical manuscripts and notebooks from the 15th and 16th centuries. Weaving archetypal motifs from these sources alongside those from mythology and personal inner work, she uses a Jungian art-based research approach to facilitate our understanding of the human psyche.
Materiality and process are key to her practice, and she embraces a variety of mediums, including ceramics, glass, metal, textiles, and painting, to express the symbolic material within archetypal imagery.
Chantal has exhibited at galleries and institutions across the UK and internationally, including The Lightbox Museum, Woking; Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh/London; La Boulangerie, Paris; Guildhall Art Gallery, London; Orange County Museum of Art, California; and WW Gallery, Venice.
She is also the founder of the residency program Hogchester Arts in West Dorset and hosts the Jungian online book club and speaker program "The Red Book Club". She presents courses, talks and workshops on archetypal symbolism and psychological alchemy and is a faculty lecturer at Jung Archademy. She has co-curated exhibitions at Arusha Gallery in Bruton, The LightBox Museum in Woking, and Hogchester Arts in West Dorset.
For more information about Chantal, please visit www.chantalpowell.com.
© 2020 Xenia Creative Retreat | Hampshire, UK
© 2020 Xenia Creative Retreat | Hampshire, UK