There is now a new exhibition in Church Hall:

Alexandra Selwyn-Gray: Glow, Gleam, Luminous Radiance

3rd of September – 25th of December 2026

Private view 4th of November 15.00-18.00

Glow, Gleam, Luminous Radiance brings together ceramic works from Alexandra Selwyn-Gray’s practice together with two photographic series made in Paris and Italy. Spanning different periods and media, the works reflect a longstanding interest in form, colour, pattern and the visual character of objects and their surroundings to engage her audience.

Selwyn-Gray’s career began in Australia, where she completed a three-year course in fashion design at Seven Hills Art College in Brisbane, now part of Queensland University. She twice won the Queensland Fashion Awards, created a collection for the Australian Wool Board and was shortlisted as a model for Vogue Australia. After returning to Denmark, she represented the country at Scandinavian Designers of the Year at the Future Fashion Fair in Copenhagen. Her collection attracted offers from Magasin and Illum.

Her transition from fashion into the visual arts extended her interest in construction, painting and designed form. She subsequently developed a practice encompassing ceramics, glass, sculpture, installation, photography, video and performance within her Fine Art practice.

In 1997, Selwyn-Gray completed a BA (Hons) in 3D Glass Design at The Surrey Institute of Art and Design/University of Surrey, followed by further studies in glass at Brierley Hill and the following year an MA in Fine Art. During her MA Selwyn-Gray’s practice moved to Fine Art as it became underpinned by theory and how to engage the audience, especially in photography, video, performance video and all immersive installation combining the glass installations with moving-image works.

For many years, she was a member of the artist group Vision in Art, exhibiting particularly in London. In 2007, a residency at the Accademia di Danimarca in Rome marked a further expansion into performance, photography and video. There she was awarded the Queen Ingrid Royal Rome Scholarship, following her shortlisting for the Helen Chadwick Award at the British School at Rome. Residencies have been central to Selwyn-Gray’s practice, including in 1996 The Australian National University school of Art and design at Canberra, in 2008 the Jekels Residency in collaboration with Skagens Museum, and five residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, beginning with a studio provided by the Danish Arts Council in 2007. Her Paris work resulted in photographic and video projects, several of which were exhibited there. During a residency in Ebeltoft, in 1997 she assisted Thai Munch and Finn Lyngaard and in 2013 she filmed one of her performance’s pieces at the Académie de France, Villa Medici, in Rome.

In recent years, Selwyn-Gray has returned to ceramics, bringing her experience across disciplines to the medium. Her fashion training remains evident in her sensitivity to silhouette, composition, colour and surface, while her years working with glass have informed her understanding of luminosity and light.

The accompanying photographs subject matter: Concrete Poetry, focus on found objects, removed from their original contexts and considered for their textures, contours and unexpected visual relationships. A second series explores railway stations, particularly Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris and Roma Termini in Rome. Signal lights, architectural details and railway infrastructure become studies in geometry, repetition and intense colour, transforming functional structures into compositions approaching abstraction.

Together, these methods reflect a practice that crosses the boundaries between art and design, object and image. From fashion and glass to ceramics and photography, Selwyn-Gray finds visual possibilities in materials, structures and details that might otherwise escape notice.

Her practice is underpinned by theory.

Glow, Gleam, Luminous Radiance brings these different strands of her practice together, with colour, structure and light providing a way of looking closely at the material world.