Rebecca BrahdeIsle of Man
BETHLEM GALLERY
Bethany Williams said recovering from a chronic illness was challenging
Creating artwork “slowly brought me back to me” while recovering from chronic illness, a Manx artist has said.
This Wild, Achingly, Beautiful Place, which is on display in London, was created by Bethany Williams from Douglas and was inspired by her journey to recovery.
In 2013, Williams was diagnosed with a condition called new daily persistent headache, which causes severe facial and head pain, and while she had gone into remission it returned in 2022 – this time with more severe symptoms, leaving her bedbound.
The exhibition was “a love letter to the land that held me, the pain that changed me, and the version of myself I never expected to meet”, she said.
BETHLEM GALLERY
Bethany Williams said her designs were inspired by the Manx landscape and her recovery
She said: “For a year and a half, I was bedbound, and then I have been slowly improving, but it was really challenging.”
During that period, Williams, who had recently won the British Fashion Council and Vogue Fashion Designer Fund, which supports emerging talent, moved back to the Isle of Man from London.
“I found tools to navigate life with, and in the Isle of Man I had the time and space to connect with my creative process,” she continued.
Throughout her recovery, she explored things like ceramics and being out in nature, which she said “slowly brought me back to me”.
“For the exhibition, we have developed light sculptures,” she said, “and because I was really light sensitive, I wanted to use it as a marker of my recovery.”
BETHLEM GALLERY
The exhibition is on at Bethlem Gallery in London until the end of January
Her first solo exhibition, the display includes three textile light sculptures which show the different stages of recovery, along with porcelain sculptures, paintings, a fabric installation and a wooden screen.
Williams said the display encapsulated her road to recovery, which had been “quite painful, but it came with some really beautiful life lessons”.
“I was really inspired by the landscape while I was back on the Isle of Man,” she said, such as the standing stones, the highlands, and trees which had been shaped by strong winds.
Drawn to higher areas where blueberries, gorse and heather would grow, she said those landscapes were “beautifully bleak”.
“I was trying to create this ghostly, beautiful, eerie feeling in the work, like when you lose yourself and you slowly return back to yourself,” she said.
“It’s a love letter to the land that held me, the pain that changed me, and the version of myself I never expected to meet.”
The exhibition, which is currently on in Bethlem Gallery in London until the end of January, will be on display at the House of Manannan in 2027.
