Beep Painting Prize – The Winners, Elysium Gallery

Arron Kupier, Paint³

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arron’s developing medium of Sculptural Painting allows the creation of three-dimensional forms solely in oil paint, freeing paint from surface and gravity whilst retaining the fundamental painterly qualities with true weight granted to colour. It can have physical form, shape, texture, and colour whilst remaining simultaneously suspended and animated with a sculptural zeal that vastly surpasses the remit of impasto. Whilst using a raw palette, colour seems subject to a near Newtonian quality of interaction and meaning becomes a function of parallax.

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Paul Mitchell

 

Paul Mitchell is a sculptor from Cardiff. Here he is photographed with his entry in the Glynn Vivian Gallery Open. He is currently studying an MA in Glass at Swansea College of Art, where he is using glass and stone combined.  Continue reading

Susie Wild

 

Susie Wild is an author of the poetry collections Windfalls and Better Houses, the short story collection The Art of Contraception listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals. Her work has recently featured in Carol Ann Duffy’s pandemic project WRITE Where We Are NOW, The Atlanta Review, Ink Sweat & Tears and Poetry Wales.

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Another Year, Another, 2021

Another Year, another” brings together seven artists who studied and recently ‘graduated’ from the BA (Hons) Fine Art: Studio, Site & Context course at Swansea College of Art in 2020. This show is testament to the end of year exhibition that they were denied as the result of Covid 19. These artists have now finally come together to show you what went right during a time where a lot of things went wrong. Here are some of the artists.

Elisha Hughes, Photography.

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Zena Blackwell

Zena Blackwell is painter based in Cardiff. She is also the founder of Contemporary Cymru, an instagram blog dedicated to championing contemporary artists by Wales-based & Welsh based artists. Here is Zena photographed at Norbury Rd Studio, Fairwater, Cardiff. 

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Ffoto Newport, Gallery

Photographer Ieuan Berry gets ready for the opening of his new Ffoto Newport Gallery in the Market Arcade on Friday 26th November, with the Ron McCormick exhibition Carrot – Fly. 
Great to see an exciting new photography Gallery in Newport. 

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The Abysm, by Gareth Phillips, College Street Gallery, Swansea


The Abysm – Elysium Gallery, College Street, Swansea – 27th November 2021.

I don’t often say this  but I found that the exhibition by Gareth Phillips, at the Elysium, College Street Gallery, in Swansea was profound and moving.

The work was created over a long period of time, as a memorial and tribute to his father during his period of ill health, in the form of both prints and a large number of books.

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Clive Hicks Jenkins

Clive Hicks-Jenkins was born in Newport, South Wales, in 1951. The early part of his career was as a choreographer and stage director. In the 1990s he turned away from theatre to concentrate on painting. He has been praised by critics in The Independent, Modern Painters and Art Review. Simon Callow has called him ‘one of the most individual and complete artists of our time’ and Nicholas Usherwood in Galleries has described his work as ‘reflective, expressive painting of the highest order.’ Here he is, photographed by myself at his latest exhibition, Adventures in Books at The Martin Tinney Gallery this week, open from the 7th-30th October.

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Obit for Nicolas Mcdowall

It’s difficult to understand that, there will be no more trips to visit Nicolas and Frances at Catchmays Court, Llandogo, no more beautiful volumes from The Old Stile Press. To sit in rooms with every wall covered in wonderful paintings and talk of poets and artists and the next project that Nicolas was planning. I invited Steph Mastoris, Letterpress Printer and Director of the Waterfront Museum in Swansea, to visit the Old Stile Press and meet Nicolas, it was a day to remember and take my last photograph of Nicolas.

Nicolas took great care to choose the right artist for the text or poem, and here are two examples of  how that relationship between artist, writer and publisher grew.

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A Tribute for Josef, Malcolm and the great R.S.

Josef Janda was a Czech surrealist poet, who I met in Prague over many a beer, and Malcolm taught me English, in Swansea. So here is my tribute to the pair of friends who partied at my home in Craig Cefn Parc. Josef’s book ‘Free Style’ translated into English, by Dada ( Dagmar Stepankova, and edited by the other Welsh surrealist David Greenslade, and to round my tribute off, a print given to me by Malcolm with a poem by him for the late great R.S. Thomas, designed by the wonderful Paul Peter Piech.

Bernard Mitchell 2021

Roger Cecil, A Secret Artist

Roger Cecil, one of the Great Artists of Wales tragically passed away in 2015. As a tribute to his life and work, I would like to share with you a fine book by art historian Peter Wakelin who has recently curated Roger Cecil –  A Secret Artist which is currently open at the Brecon Museum and Gallery until the end of October 2021. 

Roger was a dear friend. Here he his is at his home and studio in Abertillery, where I photographed him on many occasions.

Roger Cecil, A Secret Artist by Peter Wakelin Published in 2017. 

 

Bernard Mitchell, 2021.