We’re delighted to announce Dorry Spikes as the Tir Canol resident artist for Autumn/Winter 2026. Dorry studied Illustration and Animation at Kingston University and attended ‘The Drawing Year’ at the Royal Drawing School. Painting and drawing from lived experience are at the heart of her practice. Her work has been exhibited in Y Lle Celf, Lido Stores and at The Royal Academy.
Read what Dorry has to say about what she hopes to achieve through ‘Crwydryn’.
This autumn, I am looking forward to learning from the Tir Canol landscape. I will create an extended walking and drawing residency in the uplands between the Dyfi and the Rheidol. Applying my existing experience of being a travelling artist, and echoing the historic figures of the ‘tramp’ (seasonal farm worker) and Welsh itinerant, ‘jobbing’ artists. In planning my walking and drawing routes I will use public transport and aim to coincide my walks with community social events where possible. I will carry extra drawing materials, should anyone want to take a moment and draw alongside me.
I research archives and maps before making Drawing-Pilgrimages of discovery. I want to share and celebrate the sense of peace and connection that happens when I devote attention, by stopping and drawing a place. In doing so, I am interested in illuminating things that might not always be ‘obvious’ – the visible but obscure. I am hoping the work I make within the Tir Canol communities will help to nurture connections to the landscape by exploring how the contemporary and intangible cultural layers of these places meet and converse.
As a first-generation Welsh woman, a feeling of ‘precarity-of-belonging’ to my birthplace and language motivates me to seek connections with layers of meaning in landscapes. Because of my rural upbringing (being practically engaged in foraging and land work), I have developed a deep knowledge about the area south of the Ystwyth. This village/workshed/kitchen-learning meets with a love of walking, exploring and drawing, and influences my personal enquiries into the things that fascinate me. I carry this land-knowledge out into the wider world and it makes every experience brighter and more precious.
In the Tir Canol area I have a few different themes that I am interested in exploring – I would like to find and draw crossing places: the old stone footbridges, the old places in the rivers where there used to be stepping stones, the significant wells, how the names of places reflect their nature. I would like to learn more about now unoccupied upland farms such as Syfydrin; and how might walking and drawing celebrate the dark skies of the Tir Canol uplands? I am interested in the old monks/pilgrims/trade byways that led to our sea ports and holy wells (Llancynfelin/Llandre etc). I am also interested in the history of the revivals and where large outdoor gatherings for worship might have taken place.
I seek a sense of deeper connection by illuminating things that might not always be ‘obvious’. I recently made a series of works about the use of quartz as an apotropaic stone in Ceredigion. As well as looking at archives at the National Library and old maps, this informally involved the community when I made work in the landscape and talked about what I was doing with anyone passing by. As my project progresses I would greatly value any local knowledge that can add to its richness and scope. I sometimes host self-led location drawing meet-ups (‘Dere Ddarlunio’) and would be eager to make sections of walks with others to share knowledge and add layers of understanding to the landscape we are traversing.
