by Sophie Yardley
Throughout this issue of Squarely, we’re exploring what it means to reignite our creativity and tap into the joy and inspiration summer brings.
On page 20 you’ll have read our piece on healing your inner artist-a gentle nudge to reconnect with your creative side. As someone currently navigating a creative rut myself, I’ve come to believe that the best work emerges when you create for yourself, not for others. When you grasp onto what genuinely inspires you, that’s when your creativity really begins to thrive.
One artist who embodies this idea is our cover star Darcy Whent, whose work is rooted in storytelling, blurring the lines between memory, imagination and inherited myth. A recent graduate from Bath Spa University (BA Hons, Fine Art, 2023), Whent is now based in Bristol and exhibits her work across the city, from The Mount Without to Circular Art Space.
Like many artists, she balances her practice with other work, confronting the familiar challenges of building a sustainable career. However, Whent seizes this tension and shapes it into the emotional undercurrent which informs her work.
In the spirit of creative renewal, we asked Whent to share the inspirations behind her practice and what keeps her imagination alive.
A journey into Memory and Truth in Art
With Darcy Whent
As an artist, my work is deeply concerned with the slippages between memory and truth—how the stories we tell ourselves shape our understanding of who we are, and how these narratives evolve or fragment over time. I often think of memory not as a fixed archive, but as something fluid, shifting with the present moment and our emotional relationship to it. There’s a tension I keep returning to: between what actually happened, and what we remember or choose to believe. It’s in this liminal space that my practice operates.
I grew up in Wales, and that cultural identity, steeped in oral tradition, myth, and familial storytelling, has had a lasting influence on how I think about narrative. My work isn’t about preserving facts, but about evoking a kind of emotional truth. I’m interested in how memory is both unreliable and deeply felt, how it can be distorted by time, repetition, or desire. Through my paintings, drawings, and installations, I often reimagine childhood moments, domestic scenes, or maternal relationships; not to recreate them faithfully, but to capture how they haunt or comfort us in adulthood.
Autofiction is an important tool in my process. I use it to weave together lived experience with imagined elements, creating a kind of psychological realism that feels emotionally honest, even if the details aren’t literally true. In doing so, I aim to create work that feels both personal and strangely universal—images that might prompt viewers to consider their own half-remembered stories or unspoken truths.
Formally, I allow this theme to play out through material choices. I’m drawn to surfaces that bear marks, that feel aged or altered, such as distressed paper, layered paint and stitched fabric. These tactile elements mirror the way memory works: nothing is pristine, everything is palimpsestic. Some things are deliberately obscured or left unfinished, mirroring the way we edit our own recollections.
Ultimately, I’m less concerned with arriving at a single truth and more interested in the act of unearthing, of noticing what lingers and what slips away. I want the viewer to enter into that ambiguity and reflect on the stories they carry too.
Stay up to date with Whent’s latest exhibitions and art drops at darcywhent.co.uk.
