EXHIBITION / Letters from Meduseld at The Chapel, Jun-Aug 2023
Sobremesa (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 120 x 80cm - in the Art Shop window on Cross St.
This summer, we are very excited to bring you our second solo exhibition at The Chapel in Abergavenny. ‘Letters from Meduseld’ features twenty-five of our new frescoes, and is being exhibited over two floors from 29th June until 19th August 2023.
LETTERS FROM MEDUSELD
An Exhibition of 25 New Abstract Frescoes by Aster Muro
at The Art Shop & Chapel, Abergavenny
from Thursday 29th July - Saturday 19th August 2023
Open Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 4pm.
Address: The Chapel, Market Street, Abergavenny. NP7 5SD.
Tel: 01873 852690 (Art Shop, open T-S, 10-5)
With the Meduseld frescoes, we are celebrating hospitality and gathering. Each painting plays out real and imagined stories of exchanges, ingredients and possibilities from a metaphorical meduseld (Old English, mead-hall).
All frescoes are available to buy from The Art Shop, and Collectorplan (an interest free credit scheme from the Arts Council Wales) is available.
Gateau (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 100 x 100cm.
Pomegranate (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 100 x 100cm.
Cobbles & Salt (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 120 x 80cm.
Exhibition view, upstairs.
The meduseld we have imagined could be somewhere legendary and fabled, otherworldly, or universal. Here, in dining and feasting, the raw material of food and drink is elevated into something transcendent and powerful by the act of convening and sharing it.
The word ‘meduseld’ has the dreamlike intangibility of memory but, as a place, its fundamentals – shelter, communality and victuals – are very human; real and necessary regardless of time. It also holds undertones of sweetness and joy, with medu (mead) referring to the fermented honey drink.
With a nod to the centrality of the early Germanic hall as an anchoring and unifying place to receive guests and host celebrations, the frescoes in this exhibition explore something joyful and timeless. The plaster is laid on and stripped back repeatedly leaving very little depth of material. What appears is an illusory layered tapestry that exists within a few millimetres; there and not there, a memory and a presence, an invitation to read and enjoy the seen and unseen.
Neptune’s Banquet (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 120 x 80cm.
Marzano (2023)
In process, our frescoes are grounded in the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. They are painted in wet lime and marble plaster with the friction of spatulas and trowels and blades, and dried by the air. They are rooted in materiality and physicality and yet reaching beyond this to create a central space both internally and externally which nourishes, comforts, and connects.
In the studio: Circle of Berries, High Table, We do one thing or another (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 60 x 40cm.
Tracing some of our inspiration: Beowulf’s shining Heorot hall stands as a symbol for all good things; Babette’s Feast enacts an intimate drama of culinary metamorphosis and bringing people together; The Bloomsbury Cookbook documents the commingling of family, friendships, homes, food and art – everywhere there are many dishes to be savoured and inspiring stories to be told. Personal, anecdotal, universal. These frescoes are a space to explore some of them.
Whisky Porridge (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 120 x 80cm.
Olio (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 60 x 40cm.
Letters from Meduseld is presented in the setting of the beautiful Chapel. It is such a treat to exhibit here again. It is a place of gratitude, nourishment and congregation in its original ecclesiastical purpose but also today in the conversations and workshops it hosts and the food it serves. Sharing food at table is a simple act but also a privilege. With this is mind, we will be donating a percentage of their exhibition sales to The Trussell Trust and Magic Breakfast, two charities working in the UK to provide food to those in need.
Elderflowers (2023), pigmented plaster on board, 100 x 80cm.
“Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity.”
Long Grass in June (2023, pigmented plaster on board, 100 x 80cm.
We can thoroughly recommend a visit to see the exhibition and explore Abergavenny if you live further afield. You can stay at The Angel, visit the bakery, hike up The Sugar Loaf or Blorenge mountains and dine at the renowned Walnut Tree.
If you are unavailable to visit in person, a full gallery of the exhibition can be viewed on our website here or on The Art Shop website.
Enjoy!