Three representations of RHIANNON by the Welsh sculptor John Meirion Morris. The first (above) is characterised by him among his ‘political’ works, seeing Rhiannon as representing Wales. The abstract form represents her bedraggled hair sticking out from the side of her head and a foetus hanging down from her umbilical cord. Nails and barbed wire surrounding the form set the tone of the woman cast out of the court to the horse block after her child has been abducted. This is uncompromising work facing the full barbarity of what has happened to her in the medieval story as well as seeing her as representing the present day state of Wales much as does the poem ‘Rhiannon‘ by the 20th century Welsh-language poet Gwenallt.
The other two sculptures of Rhiannon by this artist are more directly representational and show her with her child Pryderi:
He puts these sculptures with his ‘spiritual’ work which includes representations of other characters and scenes from the Mabinogi and also a representation of the ‘Pair Dadeni’ (Cauldron of Rebirth).
Rigantona 