Katya Robin
✏️ drawing everydayProjects
Diary
About
Deserters
Life changing sickness is a commonality that connects many artists' otherwise disparate practices across decades, genres and lifetimes. Deserters asks, ‘What is the relationship between illness and making? ‘Good health’ has obvious merit – but what about the value of ‘ill health’?’
Society draws a line between the healthy and the sick; mind and body; good and bad. Artists often occupy the fault line between these definitions and while illness, a common theme in art and literature, can be seen as a symbol of alienation, it can also be the key to ‘desertion’ into a creative space.
This project brings together the work of 12 exhibiting artists and, sitting outside of the main funded exhibition, 12 online artists. Together, they reveal themes and modes that can be broadly described as: abstraction, repetition and pattern making; nature and healing; lying down while the world stands up; the body – whole and in parts; words and printed text.
Supported by Zoë Gingell, curator of Oriel Y Bont, Caroline Humphreys and Bella Kerr are co-curating Deserters, alongside Amanda Roderick, who is also creating its online presence.
The project is co-funded by the Arts Council Wales Create Fund, the University of South Wales and by the extra, unpaid time and goodwill of all the exhibitors, curators and other contributors.
Ty Crawshay
University of South Wales
Treforest CF37 1DL
3 April - September 2025