REVIEW: Spirals Gathering, Time Breathing

By Alison Norwood, volunteer arts reviewer

The fourth of Towner Eastbourne’s Emerging Artists Fund exhibitions takes the visitor around an in-between world of swirling movement across an ever-changing cosmos.

Its artist, Cecilia Fiona, depicts birth, death and eternity via spirits, seashells, and various creatures in this intriguing new body of work. This is her first institutional solo exhibition in the UK (she is based in Copenhagen, Denmark).

As with many high-concept exhibitions, I chose to view the pieces first before reading about them, and, happily, my interpretation and the artist’s intention matched.

For visitors reading the introductory description of the works and seeing that they are inspired by Norse mythology and quantum physics, fear not – this is clearer than expected, especially when starting with the paintings.

For instance, Birth and Black Holes (2026) can be read as a beautiful, decorative, symmetrical canvas of pulsing, echoing spirals with calming colours. Look more closely and floating spirits reveal themselves in the background behind the womb-like foreground.

Next to it, The Butterfly Between Worlds (2026) is exactly that. There are layers of spirals and roses with the butterfly transparent on top. It is clear here to see several worlds happening at once, depicted in slightly darker and richer colours than its neighbour.

After initial sketches, Fiona paints directly onto canvas using a fine brush. One can only imagine the hours it takes to create such resonant and interesting works in this way.

The gallery is mostly filled with sculptural installations, dominated by Spirals Gathering, Time Breathing (2026) (main image) in the centre. This otherworldly immortal jellyfish and surrounding objects includes hanging branches as a reference to Yggdrasil, the tree of life. The overhanging hand-painted jute body, held up by shells, shelters small worshipping creatures underneath. It forms its own world-within-a-world, like spirits captured in a marquee.

Another large sculpture, Questions from a Seed (2026), shows two communication devices talking to each other, held together by a kind of spine. Around it, is the fabric being inhaled or expelled?

Joining and circularity is the theme running throughout the exhibition, with an accompanying soundtrack by Lucie Cure. Inspired by one of Fiona’s paintings, A Sun is an Atom, a Womb is an Ocean (Now What Am I?) (2025) [not shown here], she imagines souls calling to one another with an eerie, floaty result.

If this all sounds rather intense, it isn’t. Fiona has a vision to impart and it is achieved in a space connected with ideas through a limited colour palette and vast imagination.

As ever, such works can be viewed as simply art in itself or as an artist’s message – on this occasion it works beautifully both ways.

:: Spirals Gathering, Time Breathing is free to visit until 1 November

:: Alison Norwood is managing director of Norwood Editorial Services and was previously an academic publisher. She has also worked in print and design and writes novels in her spare time. Alison has always studied art history and is a volunteer arts reviewer for Eastbourne Reporter.

You can support our independent journalism with a one-off donation or a regular virtual coffee to really help us out – thank you!