Queen Street Gallery

A New Centre of Art – Queen Street Gallery

Recently I have been involved in the Queen Street Gallery,  a new gallery and the first of its kind in Neath. The gallery widens the reach of art in the Swansea Bay area and includes well established as well as emerging Welsh and international artists in different fields of practice.

Queen Street Gallery

Queen Street Gallery opened in June and is proving a popular addition to the centre of Neath. Just down the road from the train station, it is an easy place to get to and has its latest exhibition opening tonight from 6 – 8pm (Friday 7th September 2018). Carole and Peter Evans have a retrospective exhibition of their painting – closely observed cameos of everyday life. Both Carole and Peter were born in Neath and both have exhibited throughout Wales, London and The Cotswolds.

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from Joy Revision

A Centre of Art – Swansea 4 – Two Small Galleries

There are many galleries in Swansea these days, some quite big and some quite small. Elysium Gallery is one of the small ones but is part of a large artists organisation in the city with close connections to Swansea College of Art and running a substantial collection of artists studios and events.

Sophie Harding

The exhibition, “Paint to the Teeth Bone”, that has just finished at Elysium featured three emerging artists currently students at the college. I look forward to seeing how each of the artists develop their work but I was particularly taken by Sophie Hardings work on figures.Continue reading

N. S. Harsha

A Centre of Art – Swansea 2 The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery

Last week I took a day to walk around some of the art currently showing in Swansea. The city is teeming with it – all sorts both international and local. For many years now the arts scene in Swansea has been good but in recent years it has been growing even stronger. So I will be posting each day this week with a different aspect of the work we enjoyed on our tour from one gallery to the next.

N. S. Harsha

We started at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery where N. S. Harsha had his largest exhibition in the UK to date. He was winner of the Artes Mundi prize in 2008 and one of the works was an installation made for the Glynn Vivian. The whole exhibition was impressive and the installation was powerful in its use of mirrors – I became one of the people painted on the floor looking up at the mirrored ceiling. It has a strange and disorientating effect.Continue reading

Steel Perspective

But Is It Art?

On my walk this week I found myself in one of the upper floor rooms of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and enjoyed looking at works by well known artists of the past such as Ceri Richards, Paul Nash, Henry Moore and others. In this room I was also struck by the effect of the translucent screen hanging in front of the floor to ceiling window. It changed my perception of the building opposite and for a few moments I thought I was looking at another work of art – so I took some photos!

Looking Out

Directly below, on the ground floor, is the room used for talks, presentations, etc.,  In here I spotted a stack of seats in the corner and I was again persuaded to take some photos. The clean, bright patterns of stainless steel really appealed to me ….. but is it art?Continue reading

Glynn Vivian Art Gallery

Art and History at The Glynn Vivian Gallery and Museum

On my walk this week around the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum in Swansea, I looked in a number of the rooms. In the main gallery I observed, listened to and contemplated the various abstract and video art works to be experienced in the current exhibition – “These Waters Have Stories To Tell”.

Art at the Glynn Vivian

This exhibition is part of the Ephemeral Coast series of touring exhibitions and includes six different artists. The first of the works I have shown below is one of the most deceptive – this (apparent) swimming float is in fact made of concrete and knowing this, my perception of it becomes confused. I am being deliberately deceived, and this brings to mind so many parallels in todays society that I have to start thinking more deeply about it in an effort to figure out my understanding of the themes of the exhibition and the connections the works have to us and the relationship we have with the/our environment.

On the top floor I enjoyed some of the older works in the museum – not just the works themselves but also the displays and the patterns of light and reflection created.

dark day at the beach

Beachscapes, Space and Light

One of the best things about a big beach or bay is the sense of space and the quality of light to be found.

The south west coast of Scotland has been popular with artists for many years and Kirkcudbright is known as the artists’ town with a number of important and influential artists having lived and worked there in the past. Continue reading

Architecture and Art in Cardiff City – Reviewing the Walk

Looking through the entrance archway of Cardiff City Hall towards the end of my walk this week and the National Museum of Wales, I have completed my circuit of the rectangle of classical, brutalist and functional architecture that makes up this cultural and educational sector at the approach to the city centre.

Completing the walk in the museum itself and the Artes Mundi exhibition (already visited three times), I can only recommend a visit to the show before it ends on 26th February.

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Cardiff Met Degree Shows

I was allowed to take photos at the Cardiff Metropolitan’s School of Art Degree Show this year. The images below represent a small part of the Ceramics Show – click on the images to go to the artists’ websites.

The shows for other courses there were also excellent and we had a very good day out looking round the exhibitions at Howard Gardens and in the new building at Llandaff.

Cardiff Met Ceramics Degree

Theo Adamson Ceramics

 

Cardiff Met Ceramics Degree

James Hobbs – Ceramic Artist

Cardiff Met Ceramics Degree

Sophie Southgate

Cardiff Met Ceramics Degree

Sophie Southgate

Cardiff Met Ceramics Degree

Harriet McCormick