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.

What’s the point . . . of focus?

Some of my recent work has taken me to the town of Brecon in the Brecon Beacons, South Wales. The photos below, which I took one sunny day after school, remind me of the need not only to stay focused on the task at hand, but also to adjust that focus to ensure that I can see and understand more of what I am doing and what is going on around me.

River Honddu

River Honddu

Looking Seeing Drawing

I am currently working on two drawing based projects. The first is the Josef Herman Art Foundation Cymru Schools Award Project 2014. The focus of my part in this project, apart from Josef Herman, is drawing – more specifically, drawing and digital media (iPads). See below for examples on video from this project.

The second is a research project run by Cathy Treadaway with CARIAD at Cardiff Metroplitan University – Centre for Applied Research in Inclusive Arts and Design.

Both projects fit well with my approach to drawing. Drawing is about looking and understanding. By observing the things around us (or within ourselves) and transferring that observation to the drawing medium, we can understand and appreciate more of what we observe. For this to happen we must look, look and see. The more we look, the more we see, the better we understand. The deeper our understanding of the world around us, in my view, the closer we come to balance within that world.

Our understanding of drawing has widened in recent decades. The traditional techniques of pencil or charcoal on paper (amongst others) have been augmented. My own drawing used often to be charcoal on paper (a medium I love). These days I think of some of the work I do with wire and weave, as drawing – it is a way of working out ideas in my head that need a means of expression. The full expression, however, does not appear until a finished piece is produced. The “sketchbook” I took with me recently to Crickhowell, to show my tapestry workshop participants, was a table full of bits of weaving and wire, three dimensional trials and experiments – there was no paper.

When producing my StillWalks videos, the first step (most of the time) is to carry out a recce walk. I don’t take my cameras and only take photos on my iPhone. I think of this as drawing. It is my first sketch of the environment where, on production day, I will gather the content for the finished StillWalks video.

The digital medium element of the Josef Herman project is the iPad. All of the schools I am working with use iPads in their classrooms and so were familiar with them. They were less familiar with using them for drawing. However, David Hockney, through the use of his iPad, has shown the world a good example of the widening array of methods to record our observations and express our imagination and understanding.

Below are some examples of drawing by 9 and 10 year old children based on Josef Herman’s work. The children modelled as figures from Herman’s works and drew each other on both paper and iPads.