Keith Bayliss – Visual Artist

 

‘Keith Bayliss ‘ work is figurative and expressive – his motif, the human figure in the landscape. He works in a variety of mediums: pencil and ink on paper, oil on canvas, relief printing and more recently, small mixed media sculptural constructions’

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Ways of Protest, Elysium Gallery Bar, High Street, Swansea.

Ways of Protest earlier this year at the Elysium Gallery and Bar in Swansea, High Street, in partnership Swansea Museum, changemakers and Fusion. Contained artworks from over sixty Welsh and International Artists, archival  artifacts from Swansea museum, as well as memorabilia , interviews, and photographs from the public and protest groups from Swansea and Wales.

This extensive exhibition explores how the arts can be a vehicle for protest and social change. A celebration of people who have fought for social equality in Swansea and Wales.

The gallery have provided a photographic record and 360 Video tour on their website elysiumgallery.com  (exhibitions, archive )

The artworks as always were wonderful and the excellent documentary photography was memorable. Here are just a few examples.

 With over 60 artists both local and national, it was very apt in these current turbulent times. Brilliant documentary photography, including Black Lives Matter and disabled protesters in wheelchairs, marching chairs and a birthday cake for Trump you Bastard.

Bernard Mitchell 2021.

To link to a 360 degree view of the exhibition, click.

http://www.elysiumgallery.com/protest-360/index.htm

David Tress – New Works and Writings 2020

Messum’s 12 Bury Street, St. James’s, London. SW1Y 6AB.

4th to 27th November 2020.

 Because of this damn virus I can not travel to London to the opening of David Tress’s exhibition at Messum’s in St. James, London. I would love to be there. However thanks to David I have the wonderful catalogue which not only includes all the work but also his beautifully written words a must buy at only £18.00. Messum’s have done a truly magnificent effort on the design and printing.

If you live in London, it’s a must go, but if not, here are a few photographs of the catalogue to tempt you!

Roman Wall, Housteads Looking West, 2020. Watercolour and mixed media on paper. 32 by 47 cm. 2019

‘’ Love the sinuous shapes of Hadrian’s Wall as it loops up and around its high ridges of land.’’ 

– David Tress 2020


Land (Fields, Hay Tor, Dartmoor) . Mixed Media on Paper, 52 by 65 cm. 2019

www.messums.com

2020 BEEP Painting Biennial

The BEEP 2020 Biennial, at the Elysium Bar and Gallery overflowed to fill number 211 next door,

Taking some general views I managed to photograph the overall winner Rosalind Faram’s bright and fluorescent painting. Rosalind lives and works in Sussex, and we have her solo exhibition to look forward to at the Elysium Gallery in 2021.

Winner of the Friend’s of the Glynn Vivian for an Artist working in Wales was Aron Kuiper’s original work, Celfie.

My own favourite was Elinor Evan’s Cupid and Minator, I have this fixation with angels. Elinor comes originally from Wales, lives in Spain with her family and horses.

Other Elysium artists who I  photographed at the opening were;

Christy Burdock, ‘ In the Club, acrylic on Canvas.

Enzo Marra, Witch Series, enamel, hamerite, and linen.

Katie Trick, And We’d Laze for Days and Days, acrylic on canvas.

 And lastly Kena Brown with her painting of her mother and father. 

I also took a short break to add a few more Elysium studio portraits, which I shall post shortly.

Caroline Rees

Caroline Rees is known for her sand blasted architectural work, which she has been doing since 1998, with many important commissions throughout the country. Living in the Mumbles she also creates intricate black and white paper cuts inspired by the local coastal landscapes.

www.carolinerees.co.uk

Rodney Bender

Rodney Bender was born in Australia in 1978. He studied at the Welsh School of Architectural Glass, Swansea, he became Head of Department, and in 1999 introduced the Masters programme. In 2001 he left to form his own company, Innovative Glass Products, a good name for a company that designs and manufactures products for the public and private sectors worldwide. In 1985 he completed two windows for StMary’s Church in Swansea, The Welsh Guards Falklands Memorial. Rodney lives in Swansea and works from his workshop in Clydach.

www.innovativeglass.co.uk

Katie Allen

Katie Allen lives and works in Swansea. She produces beautiful, delicately crafted painted glass that reflects in intricate patterns the natural world, influenced after a trip to India in 2006. She has exhibited in London, Bristol and Wales. In 2015 she was commissioned to produce glass for the new Outpatients Department at Morriston Hospital

www.katieallen.co.uk

Chris Bird Jones

Chris Bird Jones lives and works in Swansea and studied at the Welsh School of Architectural Glass in Swansea under Tim Lewis and a Masters at The Royal College of Art, London. She was head of Glass at Wrexham and Wolverhampton Universities and returned to Swansea where in 2012 she left as Director of the Masters programme to follow her own arts practice.

Her recent exhibition of spoon like forms ‘We are all fragile’ at The Mission Gallery, in Swansea has sadly been postponed by the current viral epidemic. He work is known internationally. She was recently in India with fellow glass artists, Amber Hiscott and Catrin Jones.

www.Chris-bird-jones.co.uk

Amber Hiscott

Born in Swansea Amber Hiscott graduated from The Welsh School of Architectural Glass in 1975, she studied with the German glass artist Ludwig Schraffrath. Setting up her own studio in Gloucester Place she was part of the group of Glass artists who became internationally important and known for their contemporary use of Glass from the 1970’s onwards. She worked on small and large scale projects with her bold abstract colours and movement, joining David Pearl to form Hiscott-Pearl.

She is photographed here at home in Sketty. Below is part of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff.

www.amberhiscott.com

 

 

David Pearl

David was born in Nottingham in 1952. Studied at Sheridan College, Ontario, returned to study at the Welsh School of Architectural Glass in Swansea. 1975-77, and The University of London, Architecture. Teaching both in Canada and Wales. Since 1981he has worked on joint projects with Amber Hiscott. In 2009 Gomer Press Published a book of his photographs ‘Gower’ with words by the poet Nigel Jenkins.

www.david-pearl.com

Alexander Beleschenko

Alexander Beleschenko was born in 1951 in Corby, Northamptonshire of Ukranian parents.  He studied at Winchester, and Norwich schools of Art, The Slade and the Swansea School of Architectural Glass at the Swansea College of Art.  Alex is a prolific and internationally acclaimed artist. On his graduation in 1979 he worked part time at Celtic studios as well as teaching at the college. Initially he set up on his own studio in Exeter, but then returned to live and work in the Hafod.  Swansea had become the centre of  a new wave of creative contemporary artists, other graduates set up their own studios. Alex was at the hub of this movement with his work seen worldwide. One example here is the centre piece of the debating chamber at the Welsh Assembly Senedd building

Bryan Evans

Like Howard Martin, Bryan Evans was from Morriston and  he often travelled to work with him. He also joined Celtic glass on Graduation from the School of Art in 1949.  After  Martin’s untimely death in 1972 Evans continued with the enthusiasm and encouragement he had from Howard Martin and became the Studios workhorse designer until his retirement in 1991. I visited him in 2019, at his home in Morriston, with some of his cartoons and designs.

These words are from: A Vision Fulfilled, The story of Celtic Studios. And Swansea’s architectural glass tradition. By Maurice Broady, Published by West Glamorgan Archives.

John Edwards

Howard Martin founded the Welsh School of Architectural Glass at the Swansea School of Art in 1935.In 1940 with his cousin Hubert Thomas he opened the Celtic Glass Studios in Prospect Place, Swansea, near the present Dylan Thomas Centre.

John Edwards, on graduation, joined the staff of Celtic Glass in the early 1950’s as a talented painter- designer. Typical of his early progressive designs was the Good Shepherd in modern dress at Bettws Chapel, Abergavenny in 1978. He moved forwards preferring his geometric style to the traditional Victorian figurative windows seen in most chapels and churches.

Tim Lewis

Tim Lewis, followed on from Howard Martin founder of the Department of architectural Glass at the school of Art as Director. Together they had brought Swansea to become of international importance. They expanded the range of processes, moving forward from the traditional ecclesiastical designs to more abstract forms. In 1992 he established his Glantawe Studios in Morriston.

www.Stainedglass.llgc.org.uk

Glenys Cour MBE

Glenys Cour studied at the Cardiff College of Art, where Ceri Richards taught illustration. She was also taught by another Swansea artist Alfred Janes. She was appointed to the staff of the Swansea College of art by the then director of the department of stained glass Tim Lewis to teach colour research and the importance of its use in architectural glass. As in her paintings she brought to the stained glass the power of Colour, which has been passed on to her pupils who have become internationally recognised. Such as the Swansea based artists Alex Beleschenko, Amber Hiscott, and Catrin Jones to name but a few.

www.glenyscour.co.uk

For her services to the Arts in Wales, the MBE is a well deserved honour for our lovely, elegant Glenys Cour, Colourist, stained Glass Artist, Teacher, Founder member of the Mission Gallery, and Friends of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and at 96 years old still working every day, from her home overlooking the sea and Swansea Bay that she loves.

 

Ceri Richards

Ceri Richards was the first artist to be photographed for what has become the Welsh Arts Archive, at his studio in Edith Grove in London, part of the Swansea friends of Dylan Thomas, ‘The Swansea Gang’ in 1966.Better known for his paintings, he is pictured here working on the designs for the window in the new Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool.

 

 

See also this article:

Ceri Richards 1903-1971

 

 

Catrin Jones

Catrin Jones, was born in Cardigan in 1960 and now lives and works in the heart of The Gower peninsular. After graduating from the Welsh School of Architectural Glass in Swansea she established The Gaslight Studios with four fellow graduates in 1982. Her work involves, drawing, painting, sand blasting and acid etching, and has been collected and exhibited in Europe, Japan and North America, including The V&A  in London, and numerous international commissions.

www.catrinjones.co.uk