A Burry Port designer’s artwork, made from scraps off her studio floor, has been picked for The Discerning Eye exhibition at London’s Mall Galleries.
Tammy Danielle Davies’ textile piece, Threads, was inspired by a picture of a textile dump in Ghana.
She says she feels “honoured” to have a textile piece chosen for the show. “It’s very flattering,” she said.
Tammy Danielle Davies made Threads from studio scraps after seeing a textile dump in Ghana
The picture showed waste that she says comes mainly from western countries. “Just because we’ve moved the problem somewhere else, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” she said.
The threads in the piece are scraps from her studio floor, stitched across three wooden embroidery hoops that she found in a scrap store.
She says that is the point of the piece: “I’m trying to demonstrate that we can still ‘create’ without over producing.”
From a fashion degree at Carmarthen School of Art to a Master’s at Swansea College of Art
Tammy, a disabled designer, graduated from Carmarthen School of Art with a degree in fashion design in 2025.
She has just started a Master’s at UWTSD’s Swansea College of Art.
Moving from clothes into textile art did not feel like a big leap to her. “I think there is a perception that designing and making garments isn’t ‘artistic’, but if you have a story to tell, it doesn’t matter what medium you use, as long as you tell it with honesty and integrity,” she said.
Hugh Bonneville among the six Discerning Eye selectors at the Mall Galleries
The show was chosen by six independent selectors, among them actor Hugh Bonneville and portrait artist Kelvin Okafor.
The others are artist and scientist Jasmine Pradissitto, art lawyer and collector Jon Sharples, culture journalist Martin Robinson and Financial Times art market columnist Mel Gerlis.
The organisers say more than 6,800 entries came in, and more than 750 works by more than 550 artists were shortlisted. They take in painting, drawing, sculpture, print, photography, video, textiles and ceramics.
The exhibition is free to visit, from 10am to 5pm every day, from Friday 13 to Saturday 21 November. It stays online until 1 January 2027.
Tammy is the latest Carmarthen School of Art name to make the news this year. In June, two of its textile graduates won Wonderwool Wales bursaries to start businesses of their own.
This month, fine art student Katie Morrissey’s bronze of Hugo the lion was unveiled at Folly Farm.
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