Tag: Oriel y Bont

Collaboration, Exhibitions, Writers with Artists, Writing News

New Writing in “Thoughts on Paper Exhibition” Oriel y Bont Gallery, Wales.

Exhibition image: a ball of paper with writing on it on a pink background with the words “Thoughts on Paper” in black marker across it.

I’m delighted to have new fiction included in the “Thoughts on Paper” exhibition in Oriel y Bont Gallery, University of South Wales (17 January – 25 February 2022). My fiction “Waking The Mermaids” was a response to some powerful artwork by Frances Woodley entitled “Dump 2020” Digital Painting 100 x 120cm.

I especially enjoyed the process of including drafts of my work-in-progress alongside the edited, final (can it ever be final!) piece.

With thanks to the curators and Barrie LLewelyn for including my writing.

About the exhibition

The exhibition brings together a group of artists from Wales who are interested in exploiting the versatile possibilities of working with such an everyday material. Paper combines fragility and durability in equal measure. It is a material that artists and writers have traditionally used to render their first thoughts; to make drafts, models and prototypes but it can also be used to capture spontaneity and immediacy in more resolved artworks. Every mark or crease is hard to erase, making an exhibition focused on work dependent on paper the ideal way to examine the creative process.

The exhibition includes work by Adéọlá Dewis, Penny Hallas, Richard Higlett, Sue Hunt, Maggie James, Kieran Lyons, Thomas Martin, Phil Nicol, Chris Nurse, Heather Parnell, Alan Salisbury, Stephanie Tuckwell, Tessa Waite, Frances Woodley together with responses from creative writers Maria Donovan, Judith Goldsmith, Sarah Klenbort, Kate Noakes, Shauna Gilligan, Malcolm Lewis, Samuel Mark Sargeant, Georgia Bolton, and Donna-Louise Bishop.

For more information see University of South Wales Oriel y Bont Gallery

Collaboration, Exhibitions, Writers with Artists, Writing Life

Imagining History: New writing in Exhibition Pamphlet Oriel y Bont, University of South Wales.

Black and White Cover of Exhibition Pamphlet – Imagining History

I thoroughly enjoyed both the process of responding to the art and reading the resulting writing in the Imagining History Exhibition Pamphlet. The exhibition was held in Oriel y Bont, University of South Wales, from 1 November to 17 December 2021.

In the words of Barrie Llewelyn (editor of the pamphlet), “the exhibition, pamphlet and conference focussed on the complex relationship between fiction and fact” and drew attention to the “partial, fragmentary or even distorted nature of the narratives which often shape our national histories.”

For me, the themes of landscape and memory appealed, especially in the work of John Elwyn. In my short piece, “Mama Daly” I hoped to imagine the life of a woman looking at – and also longing for – what lies in and beyond her immediate town-and-land-scapes. With thanks to Barrie for including my flash fiction piece in the publication and exhibition.

The exhibition included work by Susan Adams, Iwan Bala, Judith Beecher, Elizabeth Bridge, Jack Crabtree, Morag Colquhoun, Ivor Davies, Ken Elias, Geraint Evans, Tom Goddard, Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Rachel Jones, Naomi Leake, Kate Milsom, Radha Patel, Paul Reas, André Stitt, Daniel Trevidy, Dawn Woolley and others.

The pamphlet included writing by Tony Curtis, Frank Dullaghan, Kate Noakes, Maria Donovan, Judith Goldsmith, Derwen Morfayel, Christopher Meredith and many others, including myself.

Read more about the University of South Wales gallery, exhibition, conference and pamphlet here.

Imagining History Images with thanks to USW website https://gallery.southwales.ac.uk/current-exhibition/