SEEDBED

Through a framework Chantal calls Vegetal Alchemy, she reworks alchemical imagery, ancient incubation rites, and myths of bodily fragmentation and renewal, placing them in dialogue with Jungian depth psychology. These new works combine ceramic with blown, flameworked and cast glass. 

Across the exhibition, bodily fragments sprout, laboratory forms become organic and symbols fold into one another. Visitors are invited into this shifting seedbed and asked what the encounter might set in motion within them.

Preview Event: Thursday 15 October, 17:00 - 19:00

Chantal Powell (b. 1977, UK) is an artist-researcher based in West Dorset with a PhD in psychology. Her interdisciplinary practice asks how symbolic imagination can function as a legitimate form of knowledge in contemporary culture. Drawing on Jungian psychology, alchemy, mythology and historical source material, she examines relationships between psyche, matter and the living world.

Across making, curatorial and collection-based projects, writing and public speaking, Powell explores archetypal imagery alongside the symbolic life of objects and materials. Her research has led to the development of Vegetal Alchemy, a framework centred on growth, decay, incubation and regeneration as symbolic models for psychic and material change. She has presented this research at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo.

Powell has exhibited nationally and internationally. Upcoming institutional exhibitions include the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, and the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich. She is the founder of Hogchester Arts, a contemporary arts residency programme in West Dorset, and host of The Red Book Club, an international speaker and book programme exploring Jungian psychology, contemporary art and symbolic thought.

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Chantal Powell has been a Creative Associate at Arts University Plymouth since April 2026, working in the glass workshop to produce a series of artworks for her exhibition, SEEDBED, with technical support from glass workshop coordinator Amy Whittingham.

Amy Whittingham is a glass artist and the Glass Department Workshop Coordinator at Arts University Plymouth. Amy has worked closely with Chantal to give technical support and the opportunity for experimentation to develop the glass sculptures in the exhibition.