A wonderful feature on ‘A Firework for Vincent’ written by art writer, Martin Holman, has been published in issue 43 of Drift journal.
Jamie Mills talks about the sculptures he constructs as “teetering on the balance”. That is not meant as a physical description: his sculptures exert a quiet but electric presence when installed, lit and exhibited, as now at St Ives’ Anima Mundi gallery.
Their fragility, however, is also apparent. That is an example of their balance, sensitively calibrated to draw out qualities that surface in the viewer’s imagination with time. Like a relic from another epoch or culture placed mutely on display in a place of veneration or research, the metaphorical door to possibilities opens slowly.’ – Extract from Teetering on the Balance by Martin Holman
I’m pleased to announce that‘A Firework for Vincent’ at Anima Mundi has been extended until Monday the 30th March. The gallery will be open Tuesday to Saturday (24th-28th March), and then again Monday 30th.
I have been absolutely delighted with the reception that the exhibition has had, with a couple of notable highlights including listings in The Guardian and its Weekend supplement.
A huge thank you to all who have visited, spent time, and received the work. Also to those who have offered support and encouragement along the way, and to Joe Clarke at Anima Mundi for his trust and continued exemplary vision for the gallery. It has been an incredibly important exhibition for me in many ways, and the works continue to reveal themselves.
I’m delighted to announce ‘A Firework for Vincent’, a solo exhibition at Anima Mundi gallery, St. Ives, Cornwall, (06/02 – 22/03/26). This will be an intimate and reflective body of work comprising sculptural assemblage, paper based works and installation, across two floors of the gallery.
This work occupies thresholds. Surfaces are stitched, marked, layered and worn; objects become instruments, not only of sound or sight but of passage. Some respond to the land, some hum with memory, others simply await the listening. Here, absence is presence, darkness is ground, and matter is animated by the invisible. Through this alchemy of making, the personal becomes universal.
To enter is to move lightly, to notice, to linger, to allow the work to unfold on its own terms. A Firework for Vincent is at once a self-portrait and a constellation, a memory and a possibility, a light cast into the darkened field of what might have been. It is a place where what is broken, buried or absent is neither lost nor explained, but becomes a site of transformation, a threshold of perception and an invitation to inhabit the invisible. – Extract from ‘A Firework from Vincent’, exhibition introduction by Joseph Clarke, 2026
Please join us for the preview of the exhibition on Friday 6th February, 6.30-8.30pm.
‘A Firework for Vincent’ is accompanied by ‘Rinascita’; a solo presentation of paintings by Italian artist, Massimo Angei on floor one of the gallery.
For further information, visit www.animamundigallery.com.
Studio Portrait, 2026
The Hermit . wool and cotton fibres, dyed cotton, chalk distemper, rubber, copper, beeswax, resin, bone . 120 x 100 x 12 cm
Thanks to Jonathan Jones of The Guardian for the mention of the exhibition.
Below : Floor 3 of ‘Animal’, also featuring work by Claire Curneen and Samuel Bassett, and detail of ‘Untitled (Luminary Device)’ and ‘Memory of Salt’.
I’m delighted to have work included in ‘Animal’, @animamundigallery, (18/07 – 29/08).
‘Animal’ includes work by Sam Bassett, Paul Benney, Jim Carter, Kate Clark, Judith Nangala Crispin, Claire Curneen, Lena Dabska, Miles Cleveland Goodwin, Andrew Hardwick, Andrew Litten, Antony Micaleff, Jamie Mills, Tom Pether, Dr Martin Shaw, Tim Shaw, Oleksii Shcherbak, Kate Walters, David Kim Whittaker, Joy Wolfenden Brown, Faye Eleanor Woods.
Introduction :
“The man and the beast are one cloth.” — Cornish Proverb
Here – where memory is held in stone and sea and whispered on the wind—stories were once told of the animals who moved between worlds. These myths reflected our deeper relationship – of an inherent knowing kinship with all living beings. In ‘Cad Goddeau’, the 6th Century Welsh poet Taliesin wrote “I have been a stag, a salmon in a pool, a dog, a roebuck on the mountain..” This sentiment is shared across time and cultures where shamans, elders, and healers speak the same truth: Animals are not “other.”
Bonaparte the Pig may be right when he declared that “Four legs good, two legs bad.” Today, in the shadow of ecological collapse, a murmur of ‘older ways’ should be heard loud and clear. Our Earth is burning, drowning, breaking under weight of progress. Species vanish daily. And behind every extinction is a broken relationship. Science now supports what ancient teachings have always held: That we are not separate from the Earth. We are participants in a shared system – body, breath, and being. This is not poetic concept, It is scientific imperative. Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction, driven by habitat loss, climate change, and industrial exploitation. Since 1970, global wildlife populations have declined by 69% on average. When a species disappears, it tears holes in our ecosystems—and in ourselves.
“We are not separate spirits. We are one spirit walking in many bodies”— Lakota oral tradition
Memory of Salt . paper, thread, quills, beeswax, resin, chalk, kaolin . 40 x 32 cm
Rooted in Cornwall, this exhibition traces our deep connection to the land – how we come from it, live within it, and return, through works shaped by clay, mineral, memory, and myth, exploring what it means to belong to a place. ‘The Land Will Call You Home’, is curated by artist, Samuel Bassett.
Featuring artists: Ali Bassett, Andy Harper, Arthur Lanyon, Ben Sanderson, Carlos Zapata, Chantel Powell, Charlie Duck, Daisy Rickman, Holly Bunce, Jamie Mills, Joe Packer, Katrina Naomi, Kyra Norma, Libita Sibungu, Nina Royal, Orla Kane, Ro Robertson, Rosanna Martin, Samuel Bassett, SHARP, Simon Bayliss, Siobhan McLaughlin, Tegen Mor Tossell.
Introduction:
‘We arrive as small happenings, brief bursts of life, emerging from and returning to the land beneath us. These works trace that cycle: life and death, presence and absence, the rhythms of seasons, stars, and stone.
Rooted in Cornwall, each artist brings their own place, a fragment of celestial knowledge, geography, spirit, and soil. Through clay, mineral, myth and memory, they explore what it means to belong to a landscape. The land is worked with, spoken to, and remembered. These are marks of the body and the soul.
Themes of rebirth, death, and time ripple across the show. Patterns emerge, tensions and balances that echo the landscape itself. Footprints and fingerprints press into soft earth; berries bruise clay; valleys are followed like old stories. There is a sense of deep listening, of attunement.
We glimpse new spaces imagined from the familiar, how many ways there are to see the same place. Ideas grow differently, like people nurtured by the same soil but turning their faces to different suns.
We are connected, like the mycelium beneath our feet, alone yet not alone. A web of roots, gestures, and echoes. The land moves through us as we move through it, pulsing with life. Something old gives way to something new. A seed after a blossom. A breath shared between beings.
This is not a straight line, but a living rhythm. An organism of many parts.
We, the resilient, make sense of this place, its beauty, its weight, its change, and find ourselves within it, again and again.’
I am delighted to announce that after touring Ireland last year, ‘lucent’, curated by David Quinn, will be opening imminently at the University of Plymouth @plymuniartsculture. It is such a pleasure to be able to share this immensely special exhibition with a South West and U.K. audience. Many of the artists, will be present on the preview evening – come and see us! There will also be an associated programme of events throughout the duration of the show, see: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/whats-on/lucent
To coincide with Plymouth Art Weekender @plymartwkndr , (18/10-20/10), I will be showing work alongside Stuart J Young & Eila Goldhahn in their beautiful, domestic gallery setting.
‘Tenuis’
18/10-20/10, 11-5pm & then until 08/11 by appointment 6 Lipson Terrace, Plymouth, PL4 7PR
‘Tenuis’ features work by Stuart J Young, Eila Goldhahn, and Jamie Mills. The exhibition traverses drawing, sculpture, artefact, and moving image to share a common voice in the exploration of gesture, material status, and ritual as a means of contemplation and transformation.
These works speak of fragility and diligence. They honour their material integrity as well as their process of creation – the innate errant journeys that exist between a quiet inner voice and an emergent materiality – in their small disruptions. As with prayer, of which, its strength exists in the activity, it is the accumulation of subtle voices – a gentle coaxing which begets transformation through the interfacing of the materials over time. – JM
