Kate Bell was the first Elysium Artist that I photographed in this project to document the artists working in the Elysium studios. Kate graduated from the Swansea School of Art with a Masters Degree and for thirty years has been teaching and following He her own painting career. Her studio in the Orchard Street Complex is full of her colourful and dynamic abstract landscapes of land, sea and sky with enough space for a sofa to relax over a cup of coffee, what a pleasure it was to see.
Carys Evans graduated at the Swansea School of Art in 2013, she works mainly with the female figure, with water colours, oils and drawing etc., in her bright and welcoming Elysium studio in Mansel Street, Swansea.
Below are members of the ladies painting group who meet at her studio, the last meeting before the Covid 19 lock down on the 9th March 2020. They are pictured around the table from the left. Jane Warwick, Jo Maselis, Lydia Marouf, Mair Francis, Kirstine Dunthorne, Deanna Harding, Ann Jordan, Jane McCarthy, and Carys Evans, standing.
The first time I met Jonathan Powell The Swansea School of Art was at the Townhill Campus. It was in 2005/6 I was doing my MA in Photography. In Fine Art, Also doing his Masters Jonathan was painting a large back and white oil. Impressed, I asked if I could take a photograph. (I will put it up, when I can get at my locked down archive).
It is now 2020 and Jonathan is Director of Elysium Gallery, which is the most exiting project to promote emerging and established visual artists to ever happen in Swansea. It fills a void that existed in 2007 for studio work places, and most important Galleries to show and sell their work. There are now studios for over a hundred artists on four sites in the City Centre including the New Elysium Gallery Bar in High Street. What a fantastic achievement. So here follows my project to document the artists, their studios and exhibitions, and add it to my Welsh Arts Archive.
Dan Samuel Thomas photographed in Elysium Gallery, Orchard Street Swansea.
“I studied my BA Fine are at Middlesex uni in North London and then went on to study my MA in fine art the following year.
I have exhibited in a number of different shows in London over my time spent there.
I have been working in South wales for tge last year and I am now one of the artists at the elysium studios in Swansea.”
Felix Subway (Alfie Scheinman) – Artist – Musician, singer and Song writer, guitarist and flautist, studied at the Swansea school of Art and is part of the Swansea band lost Tuesday Society. Currently working from the Elysium Studios in Orchard Street, Swansea.
@Felix_subway_art on Instagram
Kena photographed at Elysium Studios, Orchard Street Swansea.
Elysium Artist Kena Brown’s work Father and Mother at ‘Beep’ 2020, High Street, Swansea.
Katie Trick, Elysium artist with her work, ‘ And We’d Laze for Days and Days,’ Acrylic on Canvas, at ‘Beep’ 2020, High Street Swansea.
Recent work by Katie Trick. Katie was born in 1991. She attended the fine art foundation course at the Swansea School of Art and graduated in fine art – painting in Wimbledon College of Art/ University of the Arts London.
At last after twelve months of frustrating lockdown, I have photographed Tim Kelly and his powerful paintings in his Orchard Street, Elysium Artists Studios in Swansea.
There are plans for so much more, soon we will have Household Names and Bird House at the Elysium Bar and Gallery, Peter Spriggs at Oriel Q, Narberth and the found Gallery opening on the 27th April in Brecon.
John Abell – Literary Atlas Wales – ‘Hiraeth for Beginners – ’ Becca and her Children – Newton House – Llandeilo – 2020
Writer – Tristan Hughes – Revenant (2008).
John Abell studied at the Camberwell College of Art, and now lives and works in Cardiff. He is well known for his large scale wood block prints, and colourful water colour painting, linocuts and etchings, that explore the love and lust of the human condition. He is photographed here at the opening of the Becca and her Children Exhibition at Newton House, Dinefwr, Llandeilo in January 2020.
Iwan Bala – Literary Atlas Wales – Bute St. Cardiff. 2018.
Enlli: A Learning Aid.
Twenty Thousand Saints (2008) ‘Intrigue on Bardsey Island’ – Fflur Dafydd.
Iwan Bala Artist, Writer and lecturer, born in Sarnau North Wales, studied Politics and Social Sciences at Aberystwyth University and Graduated with his MA in Cardiff. A member of the Becca Group he won the Gold Medal at the Bala National Eisteddfod. He has exhibited across Wales, China and the Czech Republic, Politically aware his c.v. reads like a National Directory.
Valerie Coffin Price – Literary Atlas Wales – ‘A Rioter’s Walk’ – Cardiff – 2018.
Amy Dillwyn – The Rebecca Rioter (1880)
Valerie Coffin Price, Artist-letterer – sculptor was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire and moved to Wales in 1956.
She studied at the Winchester School of Art, Chelsea College and the City and Guilds of London Art School. Collaborating and cross arts working have been essential to her arts practice.
The folding sketchbook was a key element in the ‘ A Rioters Walk ‘ project’. She walked and sketched following the narrative of the novel. The twists and turns of a journey reflecting in the interplay of art and text.
Joni Smith – Artist -‘Concrete Ribbon Road’ – Norwich – 2018.
Lloyd Jones Mr Vogel (2004 ).
Joni Smith is a contemporary artist known for her paper installations that explore and rework the map. Originally from Leamington Spa, she was raised in the hills of North Wales and is currently residing in Norwich – Joni’s fascination with a sense of place threads throughout her work.
‘I see my practice as a series of quasi scientific investigations contrasting installation and paper based work.
Originally from Leamington Spa, Joni Smith was brought up in North Wales, she graduated with an MA in Textile culture at Norwich University College of the Arts where she now lives.
Her intricately hand cut paper work and Installation Art, is influenced by mapping, scientific theories and mathematic algorithms.
‘ I see my practice as a series of quasi-scientific investigations contrasting installation and paper based work.’
Amy Sterly – Llanfaircaereinion – Powys – 2018.
Amy Sterly is a printmaker and sculptor originally from Chicago, now living in a small community in Wales . She tries to subvert the idea of the rural idyll through her prints and her recent sculptures have reinvented the nature of the book into something tactile that triggers the memory and emotion.
It was also a very pleasant journey through the lovely rolling hills between Welshpool and Newtown, the true heartland of Wales.
Amy Sterly is originally from Chicago , USA, she graduated in Fine Art at Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois and moved to the U.K. in 1989.
She is a Print Maker and Sculptor, who has exhibited across Wales, Europe and America.
‘ I want my Art to trigger emotion and memory and change the object into something that you might not expect’.
‘Being involved in the Literary Atlas Wales project has been an exiting and inspiring journey that has helped me find a new direction for my work and it also helped me explore new connections and meanings between literature, art and the concept of mapping.
The interdisciplinary nature of the project forces one to think about the nature of fiction and its place in the real world and how it connects with the way we imagine the story we are reading.’
It was also a very pleasant journey for me to travel to the lovely rolling hills between Welshpool and Newtown the true heartland of Wales.
John Welson is one of a small band of Surrealist Artists from Wales. He lives over looking the port of Fishguard. Born in 1953 he has had over 300 exhibitions since the 1970’s with artists from Dali to Hirst. Currently he is painting lyrical landscapes inspired by his native Wales. He is photographed here at his recent exhibition in the Senedd in Cardiff Bay.
Aimee Lax studied for her MA in Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art, she is photographed here with her exhibition ‘Radioactive Boglach’. It’s symbolism, purity, fragility/strength is a commentary on nature, was at the Mission Gallery in Swansea in January 2020. Aimee is based in the West Country.
Here is a small treat for those of you that missed one of the smallest but most important exhibitions that has been held at the National Library of Wales for a long time, The original Linocuts and prints and in some cases the relevant text by the artist Paul Peter Piech. Bravo NLW! And just before the terrible virus closed us all down.
Bernard Mitchell
I visited Richard in his studio in February 2018 tucked away in a refurbished ex-nightclub, behind a bright yellow front door. Rich was working hard on his forthcoming exhibition ‘Come get it while its cold’ which exhibited from February to April 2018. The beautifully colourful images have a dark undertone, concerned with the idea of humanity’s disconnection from and exploitation of the ecosystem, specifically with the current massive and increasing depletion of insect populations in Europe.
Further information can be found at: www.richardwilliamsartist.com or www.instagram.com/richardwilliamsisme
Beth Allender
Ben Lloyd, taken at G39, Cardiff, exhibition: The Road to New York.
Bedwyr Williams, taken at G39, Cardiff, exhibition: The Starry Messenger on 11th April 2015