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.
Writers
Rhea Seren Phillips, Poet
Jacqueline Janine Jones – Artist – Poet – Oriel Q – Narberth – Inaugural Exhibition
Oriel Q, Narberth has moved to a ground floor retail unit at 11 Market Street, Narberth.
No more stairs or lift as in the old Queen’s Hall Gallery. A total refurb to the ground floor area, with new white walls, exterior paintwork and hanging sign and ‘A’ board. The manager is Harriet Addyman. Gallery opening times are Wednesday to Saturday. 10am to 5pm. www.orielqnarberth.com
The Inaugural Exhibition ‘The Socially Distanced Woman’.
A Solo Exhibition by Jacqueline Janine Jones a member of the Welsh Group and of the Stuckist Movement. 4th September to 17th October 2020.
Jacqueline Jones was born in 1967 and grew up in rural West Wales, and went to Carmarthen Art College, Lampeter and Swansea University, recently she exhibited at the Mall Galleries in London. She describes her work as figurative, expressive. It is not without humour, but inspired by the poetry and folklore of her native West Wales. She paints, writes and every day and now lives and works in post industrial Porth in the Rhondda.
My work is primarily figurative, recently more narrative exploring quirky places and legends.
We are living in strange times and this has made me contemplate the role of the artist as outsider in isolation. The title to this inaugural show at Oriel Q is a response to this.‘ The Self Isolating Woman’. My painting has many layers. The myriad layers of interpretation through both my eyes, and the vision of others.
I am an artist because I believe that artists are not satisfied with the world as they see it. They are like children, bored with the sameness, and they are moved deeply by the things they see and think about. I paint because I am compelled to. It’s like breathing air.
Once in a while we see something startling, someone whose vision, whose way of seeing is shocking and unsettling and compelling.
Jacqueline Jones
Her work is unfiltered, bursting with life in all its obduracy, her voice is unusual and unmistakeably authentic.
Statement: Ffin y Parc Country House and Gallery, Llanrwst.
Jacqueline Janine Jones.
Jacqueline has exhibited widley including the John Moore’s Gallery, Liverpool University and the Whitechapel Gallery, London.
‘By Invitation’ Royal Cambrian Academy,( Curated by Shani Rhys James.)
‘Oil Tanks’, Tate Modern, London.
‘Made at the Museum’ National Museum of Wales. Cardiff.
Quitas Gallery, New York.
The Place.
This is the place of our birth
Where the clear glass of the porch
Brings caged light into parlours
And qualifies this worth
And this is the photograph on the mantle,
Celluloides absorbing so much
Are ours ours to puzzle out names,
Fading and received by the hours
Ground to dust on the settle,
While the sun takes reception
Through a blue otherness of panes .
And this is the carpet, frayed
By the courteous steps of time’s lurch
That hesitates, yet will not be delayed,
And this is the place that holds a furniture
Arranged as a family set in contemplation,
This is the place, and room, design of their nature.
Jacqueline Janine Jones.
Osi Rhys Osmond – Artist – Writer – 1942-2015
My first encounter with Osi Rhys Osmond was at The National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, the Art Historian Paul Joyner who had been involved in the Libraries acquisition of a major collection of Josef Herman’s drawings, was addressing a seminar on the Polish refugee artist who had settled in Ystradgynlais in the Swansea valley, after escaping from the German pogrom. Osi stood up at the end of the session and produced the most provocative and challenging statement, the audience sat in stunned silence and I think the speaker wished he could melt away. At the lunch break, I asked Osi if I could visit him, I was curious, who was this man? What makes him speak with such passion.
Robert Minhinnick – Poet – Novelist – Translator
Robert Minhinnick was born in Neath in 1952 and graduated from Aberystwyth and Cardiff Universities. Wales’ leading poet, novelist, translator and environmentalist. He has been awarded three ‘Wales Book of the Year’ in 1993,2006, 2018, Two Forward Prizes for individual poems, founded Friends of the Earth Cymru (Wales) and Sustainable Wales.
He is photographed here at the launch of his recent book of poetry, in March 2019, ‘Dunes’ at Cover to Cover Books in Newton Road, Mumbles with artist Daniel Llewelyn Hall, who made the paintings for the book.
Cynan Jones
Angela Maddock
Angela Maddock is an artist/maker, writer and teacher. Her particular interest is thread based practice and arts and health. She has a PhD from the Royal College of Art and is a King’s Artist with King’s College, London. Angela is Honorary Research Fellow in Textiles at Swansea College of Art, where she was previously as senior lecturer.
Pete Taylor
Little did I know that we had in Swansea our very own Comic Book Creator, who is better known as ‘This man Pete’, photographed here in his Llangyfelach studio.
Alys Conran
Alys Conran published her first novel ‘Pidgeon’ in 2017 and was awarded Wales Book of the Year, her second novel ‘Dignity’ was published in 2019. She teaches creative writing at Bangor University and is photographed here at her home in Bethesda.
Trezza Azzopardi
Trezza Azzopardi was born in Cardiff, she has published four novels and been translated into more than twenty languages. She teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia and lives in Norwich, where I photographed her at the Cathedral.
www.blakefriedmann.co.uk/trezza-azzopardi
Iwan Bala
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.