Chantal Powell
Chantal Powell is based in Charmouth, 7 miles from Bridport.
She is a British artist whose practice is deeply informed by Jungian psychology, alchemical symbolism, and her personal exploration of the unconscious. With a PhD in psychology, she follows a Jungian art-based research approach, using artistic process to engage with archetypal material and the psyche.
Powell works across a diverse range of media, including ceramics, glass, textiles, metal casting, and painting. Drawing on alchemical manuscripts, depth psychology, and mythology her works addresses contemporary urgencies around embodiment, ecological kinship, and the sacred intelligence of matter.
In Powell’s practice alchemy is reimagined beyond patriarchal and mind–body dualisms, privileging the vegetal and the embodied. Processes of decay, fermentation, gestation, and rebirth find expression across sculptural and painted works such as in blown and cast glass vessels that hover between organ and fruiting body, holding vitality, breath, and transformation. Alchemy here is a living symbolic language, a reverence for the generative powers of earth and body.
Powell has exhibited in the UK and internationally, including The Lightbox Museum, Woking; Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh; The College of Psychic Studies, London; La Boulangerie, Paris; and Guildhall Art Gallery, London. She is the founder of the Hogchester Arts residency programme, host of The Red Book Club, and a faculty lecturer at JungAcademy. She also delivers talks on archetypal symbolism and psychological alchemy and has co-curated exhibitions focusing on archetypally symbolic art including NightShaking with the Ingram Collection in Woking and Conjure in Bruton.