Exhibition celebrates the art of trees

Molly Stubbs

A new exhibition will explore our deep-rooted connection to trees with works from a diverse mix of contemporary Welsh and international artists

Arboreal, the newest showing from Roath’s Celf Gallery will run from 28 March – 26 April 2026, celebrating trees, woodlands, forests, orchards, and thickets.

Writer and poet Kahlil Gibran called trees “poems that the earth writes upon the sky”, and this forms the foundation for the exhibition.

Celf Gallery explained: “The Arboreal stands in art as it does in life: elemental and abiding, ab ovo, like air.

“Inescapable to artists, they have returned to the arboreal as subject and object, as medium and material, as symbol, metaphor, and state of mind,  as both source and point of departure.”

With a diverse and broad range of mediums and styles, the exhibition will bring together gallery artists and visiting exhibitors.

John Macfarlane will bring his characteristic ‘theatric style in big tree, an explosion of charcoal softness, while Wales’ own Annette Marie Townsend at the “convergence of art, science, and conservation” uses beeswax and paraffin wax in 3D pieces.

 

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A post shared by Eleri Mills (@elerimillsart)

Eleri Mills will exhibit her timeless interpretation of Welsh nature, and Harry Holland, based in Wales since 1973, provides a hyper realistic touch with his ‘Lazy Island’.

Other contributors to Arboreal include Daniel Crawshaw, Sigrid Muller, Vivienne Williams, Sarah Thwaites, Stephen Young, Simon Gaiger, Gareth Edwards, Clarissa Galliano, Cefyn Burgess and Lynne Cartlidge.

Celf Gallery will also introduce Stephen West, alongside visiting artist Maggie James.

The Gallery continued: “Each of us carries some remembered tree and can recall how the arboreal has marked our lives and affected us in meaningful ways.

“Or how the depiction of something so familiar by artists can render it anew,  and in these gestures of re-seeing, can shift our understanding of nature, and ourselves.”

Arboreal will show at Celf Gallery, Roath Park Hall, Cardiff from 28 March through 26 April 2026. More information can be found on the gallery’s site here.

Celf Gallery, run by Myfanwy Shorey and Cerys Billinge, is an independent contemporary gallery which represents both new and emerging artists, exhibiting over three rooms.