Dream Bodies by Flora Wallace
22nd - 25th May 2026
The Sanctuary, Brimscombe Mill, Stroud, GL5 2QN
Opening Event: Thursday 21st May, 7 - 9pm
‘Dream Bodies’ is a solo exhibition by Flora Wallace, shaped by a five-year exploration of the unconscious, rooted in the documentation and analysis of dreams alongside the practice of automatism. The work emerges from an ongoing dialogue between dreaming, drawing and painting, where images are not entirely controlled but allowed to surface, shift, and evolve.
In ‘Dream Bodies’ Wallace considers the body in dreams - fluid, porous, and unbound by fixed identity. In sleep the body can shift between states: water or air, masculine or feminine, thought or flavour. These transformations reflect the indeterminate nature of our dream selves, where boundaries between the human and more-than-human world dissolve.
“Phantoms become feathered angels that dwell in mountains. Precarious egg people teeter on spindle legged chairs. Moon-faced spectres emerge from the trees and Bird beings commune over a hard boiled egg.”
- Dougal Kirkland
The exhibition unfolds through an installation that brings together painting, textiles, film, and sound, drawing the viewer into the symbolic language of the artist's dream world.
What might it mean to truly listen to our dreams? Can they attune us to the world with greater sensitivity and depth? And do dreams gesture toward another state of being—perhaps even the place we return to when life ends?
Flora Wallace is an artist working across painting, drawing, ceramics, film, and sound. She uses automatism and dream analysis to explore the relationship between the unconscious and image-making. She explores ecological processes and the materialities of places through her work by transforming seasons and moments in time into inks and pigments and glazes. She is a member of Tump, an artist collective she formed in 2024 with Alex Merry and Milligan Beaumont. She regularly collaborates with musician Cosmo Sheldrake.
Patricia Brien is a UK-based curator, artist and researcher. Her work is focused on ecofeminism, myth and creative practice for ecological and social justice. She is currently a Lecturer in Critical Design Thinking at Bath Spa University.
For any enquiries please contact: hey@sacredthing.art
2024
Glazed ceramic
Hand 1: 9 x 2.5 x 20 cm
Hand 2: 9 x 14 x 12 cm
Hand 3: 9 x 21 x 7 cm