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Being Human 
16th Feb to Sun 16th March
Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture, Prints and Video with the theme of Being Human.
The visual representations of the human figure are as many and varied as our human experiences, imagination and knowledge. Artist’s works may neatly embrace classical idealism, realism, the expressively joyous or destructive.
Others may cross boundaries, embracing new technologies or materials, often reflecting the complexities of contemporary life.
Whatever genre one is drawn towards, this exhibition will give a taste of some of the ways an artist approaches and examines what it is to ‘Being Human’
About the exhibitors
Denis Curry’s bronze mythic sculpture ‘Icarus’ is ‘to remind us that the impulse to fly is with us, in our streets, and not in airbuses’ and a ‘Pedagogic Figure’ worked with students demonstrating proportion and scale. A testimony to his skill and focus on anatomy is very apparent in two fine drawings exploring human connectedness to the animal, His ‘Study for Icarus’ ‘in the North we said the cold goes through you’, and ‘Lucy Drawing ‘the first human draws the bison’
Andie Clay demonstrates her versatility in a variety of media from Chinese watercolour to biro, conveying the infinite complexities of the human figure. …”every week, for at least one long session, I draw ‘from the nude’…this nakedness I draw constantly because its challenges are infinite, and its study takes much longer than a lifetime. The fact is, it is never merely a naked body I am drawing, but a human being I am confronted with. Even when I succeed in drawing it well, so that it moves and flows naturally, is it alive with its own subjective life which I perceived so clearly while I drew it?”
Quotation from The Zen of Seeing
Rosemarie Barr – Rosemarie has an informal, and excitingly experimental approach to creating her individual take on the human form and often amusing comments on our humanity.
Rose Davies Is based at the Swansea Print workshop, showing fine Monotype prints including Nude Reflected: “This piece is based on an original life drawing in watercolour using a professional model in a studio setting. I then developed it with the three-colour separation monotype technique which gives a huge range of colours from the original three. I wanted to set the figure as part of the rich textures and colours surrounding her”.
Mike Holcroft’s bronze head ‘Imago’ could be viewed as vessel of the anima. It started life as a ‘straight’ portrait of his older sister, but as he worked on the piece, and the sittings progressed long held issues about their mother emerged. The main head is indifferent to circumstance, mute, closed to the senses, choked by her stillborn other-self. In the event he found he was talking about the universal nature of man. Two charcoal drawings ‘The Deluge’ and its companion work ‘Higher Ground’ are both powerful comments on the plight of youth, and their environmental inheritance. The reading for ‘Myself Secret’ is more than apparent in the title.
Rosemary Holcroft. The questions we ask of what it is to be human are explored through archetypal myth and symbol. Holcroft’s collage/assemblage work ‘Crossing the Water II’ works on many levels from the finite ‘matter and process’ to infinite concepts. It’s cyclical nature suggests that there are no answers but a repeated labyrinth of the unknown. The figurative outline of the St. Christopher, without flesh, suspended in space is re-appropriation of a medieval German woodcut while the fleshy figure of Christ is handled in a kitsch manner.
Barbara Price. This Fishguard based artist is well known for her paintings of colourful local characters. Starting from underlying ideas based on sketches and photographs, developing them with spontaneous brushwork, she brings out the gossipy humour which surfaces in community life, giving credence and a particular poignancy to the senior citizen.
Glenn Ibbitson. For thirty years, the central theme of Glenn’s art has been the figure, drawn or painted directly from the model in a realistic idiom. Paintings are initially built upon an accumulation of careful measurement, particular attentionbeing paid to the physiological details peculiar to that model; the asymmetry of a pair of ears, the angle one toe makes with its neighbour, the pull of flesh between finger and thumb, the sideways fall of a breast under its own particular weight. These elements all serve to emphasise the wonder of the human condition.
Pat Johnston.
The female form, synonymous with many subtle aspects of containment, is explored and exalted here by enamel artist Pat Johnson. Moving from ‘Confrontation’ through ‘Aftermath’ to ‘Escape’ her ‘Domestic Row Series’ speaks volumes about human behaviour. The vessels are decorated with body art images while several taller works focus on the female form.
Wendy Payne. “"For my recent body of work, I have been inspired to explore, reflect and
produce a visual response to an amazing journey in my life. As a nurse my boundaries were restricted, but since retirement, and gaining my BA degree in Fine Art, at Coleg Sir Gar, Carmarthen in 2005, I have been able to re-capture memories which emerge from deep feelings and emotions from my past."
A light-hearted approach to image-making masks the more serious undertones
that the paintings explore, and the materials which I have chosen are vital to the fascination and development of my ideas. I enjoy juxtaposing and layering areas of flat colour with linear imagery, in the hope of stimulating aesthetic interest within the viewer.
Maria Sears Skilfully rendered metalwork using recycled copper, these small figures dance in delight or in a calm repose. “My forms symbolise a world without constraint. In them I can find freedom and play.”
Bernard Smith - ‘Almost Human’ These Greek mythical heroes and their adversaries are fantastic creatures, treated with a witty charm in clay, with colourful decoratative glazes which sometimes compliment the form. Frequently though, there are unexpected twists and turns. Bernard seems to be saying that the best way to get through life is to enjoy colours and shapes and to have a bit of a laugh.
Sophie Myfawny Wellan. Now based in Fishguard, Sophie's experiences on moving away from Wales are hauntingly conveyed as a diaspora in her video installation “Shipbuilding”. This allegorical video describes the artist leaving behind life long friends and family having lived in Pembrokeshire for 30 years before moving to Cornwall.
The Red Dress is rigged as a sail, billowing in the wind, attempting to move, but is bound by ties within an elliptical steel cage representing both restriction and support. Steel, sail cloth, lead weight and string. Sophie is also exhibiting her ‘The Golden Ball’ sculpture of Portland stone and gold leaf.
Darren Yeadon has progressed from artisan stonemason in North Yorkshire to following in the footsteps of the great masters of sculpture. Indeed, the Carrara marble block for his highly charged ‘Untitled’ work was chosen by him at the same quarry in Italy where Michelangelo obtained his stone. Through tremendous self-belief and in the aftermath of a serious car accident when he was 23, from which he was not expected to recover, Yeadon has emerged as a fine sculptor with a fresh and natural talent. He says ‘my ideas are a combination of humour, a primitive expression of nature's design, wit, and the honest basic physical technical complexities (of sculpting).’ |
‘Confrontation’ Pat Johnson,
Enamel panel
