Satellite Events

Location: elysium gallery, 16 College Street, Swansea, SA1 5BH

Details: Landscape forms the stage onto which our life unfolds. It becomes a given that we all recognise and understand.

The artists’ landscapes are not specific places but are generic images that stand as a sign or symbol for the ideal or remembered places that transcend personal experience and exist for all of us.

The world of memory and emotion is inseparable from imagery and the other senses which combine to create our experience of being in the world and that enable us to agree with others as to what the world is.
For this exhibition, Warren’s paintings try to bring into life these fundamental places and show them as they live in our conciseness creating atmosphere and an emotional response.

‘My work has developed from a love of the physicality of paint and mark making. I am fascinated by the way we interpret visual information, sometimes from the slightest of suggestions. I am very considered with the way I apply the paint; I try to use my brush strokes to read as both the marks themselves and the events they are describing. The result has a rhythm which flows through the marks and holds the painting together as a whole. I use layers to create pictorial depth that produces an atmosphere suggesting a slightly altered reality.

I develop a deep connection to the paintings as I work on them; there are numerous happy accidents and connections that occur and reveal themselves during the painting which keeps the process alive and exciting.

Tim Warren was born in Cardiff and grew up in Penarth playing on the beach and making dens in the parks. The colors of the mud, sand, cliffs, pebbles and the ever-changing light that reflects back up off the sea have remained within him and filters back into the images he makes.

Tim Warren studied Fine Art at UWIC Cardiff and graduated with an MA in 2003. Since 2012 he has been part of the elysium gallery studios community and was a selected artist for the Beep 20016 Wales International Painting Prize.

Yuan FengHui | Meng Jie | Wang LinTong | Zhao Hai Long | Gao Rong | Zhao Bao Shan | Qiang ShiJun | Dong Tao | Mu Ya Wei |
Wang Xiao | Chen Ye | Ouyang YuLing | Zhang Yun

Location: Volcano Theatre, 27-29 High St, Swansea, SA1 1LG

Details: "Meridian" is the result from the Sino –Welsh collaboration instigated by Jonathan Powell of Elysium Gallery and Robin Martin of Famay Cross Cultural Communications Xi'an China. The exhibition will herald the beginning of a yearlong Swansea/China artist and exhibitions exchange and is a part of this years’ Beep Painting Biennial citywide festival of contemporary painting.

“Between two points, Line minimum, after starting from the beginning, dream I am to build the Bridge.” Wang Xiao 2013

Meridians are an integral part of traditional Chinese Medicine. The word also describes the connecting points of equal longitude that reflects our aim in establishing an on going connection with Welsh and China artists.
The Meridian exhibition will demonstrate the vibrant and dynamic and artistic, contemporary cultural landscape of Chang-an Xi’an which was the ancient capital of China and has been renowned as a city of outstanding artistic achievement for over five thousand years.

www.volcanotheatre.co.uk

Angela De La Cruz | Sarah Pickstone | Andrea Ruthi | Anne Ryan | Stephen Snoddy

Location: Galerie Simpson, 222 High Street, Swansea, SA1 1NW

Details: Galerie Simpson brings together five important contemporary painters to Swansea.

At first glance, Angela de la Cruz’s paintings appear to have been vandalized or flagrantly abused. Mangled stretchers, slashed canvases, twisted and violated, are hung on the wall like macabre trophies, and yet it is this deliberate and systematic desecration of the canvases, which informs the end result. Emotionally raw, yet canny and sharply ironic, De la Cruz confronts the ‘problem’ with painting by incorporating its very destruction into the work itself.

Manchester born Sarah Pickstone won the first prize in the John Moores Painting Prize 2012 with her painting Stevie Smith and The Willow, and was also a runner up for the prize in 2004. She won the Rome scholarship in Painting and spent a year at the British School at Rome. The Royal Academy of Arts has commissioned Allegory of Painting: two large scale paintings for the entrance of Burlington House, as part of RA 250, which will go on display in September 2018.

The paintings of Andreas Rüthi celebrate the hallucinogenic power of colour. They investigate new possibilities held within the tradition of painting: playing with the nature of reproduction, imitation, re-presentation and scale.
The inspiration for these paintings range from found old colour lithographs, to photographs taken by his wife, artist Helen Sear. The intention to extend the potential held within a reproduction through the act of gesture and reinterpretation is the uniting element across all the works.

Anne Ryan ‘cut outs’ are loose and playful, they are about letting the painting come to life and break free from the stretcher.
Her ceramics explore similar themes in a similarly open and painterly way. Using a new medium such as ceramics is interesting as an artist can come to it unaware of the conventions and rules. A whole new way of working and thinking through making becomes suddenly possible.

Stephen Snoddy wants viewers to look at the relationships between his works, and how he carries lines and formats from one picture over to another. He sometimes regards two consecutive paintings as a diptych, with left and right-hand panels forming parts of a composite whole. There is an obsessive commitment to playing out endless permutations of specific forms and he goes along with an ontological methodology. The work becomes defined by its geometries, serial approach and limitless variations.

‘The paintings often come in a small series and incorporate architectural and geometric structures with colour to get everything right – space, line, form. The final result is a balanced resolution made through corrections, revisions and re-workings that show a mixture of judgement through the intrinsic process of making. I both pay attention and call attention to the means and alertness of the language of painting and in particular in ‘Homage’ the paintings of Henri Matisse from 1913 -17.’

www.galeriesimpson.com

Amy Goldring

Location: Gallery 211, First Floor, 211 High St, Swansea, SA1 1PE

Details: Journeys, new paintings by Amy Goldring, exemplify a mix of spiritually charged content and individualised pop gestures. The forms are myriad, yet the energy in each is of one source and unifying. It is an exploration into perfect imperfections and at its heart there is a deep respect and gentle love for all forms manifest. Formally the paintings reach towards a balance of flowing, energetic line and colliding colours. The artist wishes to charge the surface with a primal physicality and musicality that should uplift but simultaneously ground the viewer; an expansive journey that takes the soul downwards and upwards at the same time.

www.amygoldringarts.co.uk

Location: elysium gallery, 16 College St, Swansea, SA1 5BH

Details: The first artist in residence at elysium gallery for 2018 is Richard Williams.

Using the human condition as stimuli, specifically how mortality and knowledge of it shapes our existence, Williams will be exploring these themes and using the residency to create a new body of work.
‘I’m constantly amazed by what we’re capable of doing to each other and to nature through love on the one hand and fear on the other and by the systems of thought we create to justify these things and find myself thinking about these contradictions regularly. This means my work is often dark and possibly pessimistic but I also include hope wherever I see it’.
Atmosphere, mood, colour & light are important ingredients of William’s paintings that are snapshots of a much bigger untold story.
This current body of work is 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.
‘I tend to put many hours into my paintings and so the residency part of this collection is an experiment in creating pieces at a greater pace, working from my props and images in the gallery space with a max time limit of two days a piece, to see where this takes me’.
Richard studied illustration at the Swansea Institute from 1998-2001 and since then his focus has gradually moved towards work that is less explicit in its intent.
The artist will use the gallery as a painting studio from Feb 24 – March 22nd followed by his exhibition ‘Come get it while its cold’ which will preview on Friday 23rdMarch and run until 7th April.

www.elysiumgallery.com

Simon Bayliss / Lindsey Bull / Martyn Cross / Gordon Dalton / Lara Davies / Tom Down / Tamara Dubnyckyj / Robbie Fife / Rebecca Gould / Marielle Hehir / Aly Helyer / Linda Hemmersbach / Dan Howard-Birt / Richard James / Iwan Lewis / Jonathan Lux / James Moore / Hannah M Morris / Philip Nicol / Tom Pitt / Ben Risk / Ben Sadler / Toby Ursell / Casper White / Ellie Young

Location: Mission Gallery, Gloucester Place, Swansea, SA1 1TY

Details: “Night gives us the space for things to happen in. Once we pass through twilight into darkness, edges blur; we lose the sense of things. We start to question what is in front of us; we become aware of darkness' ability to multiply risk. The fear of getting caught. Within the depths of darkness we are continually in doubt. Our vision becomes searching, figures and forms appear and disappear in the shadows. Artists often utilise this area of confusion to draw out forms and ideas, like finding a figure within an abstract painting”

Mission Gallery is pleased to present LLE, an artist-led curatorial project with a focus on contemporary painting. From a base in Wales they aim to showcase their artists via projects, international art fairs and exhibitions.
Lack of light has been a constant feature in the creation of artwork, from the earliest cave paintings through to the works of Rembrandt, and later Walter Sickert. Within this show LLE bring together contemporary works that reach into the darkness, questioning how the lack of light affects the work and what this means to the viewer.

www.missiongallery.co.uk www.llegallery.com

Kena Brown | Sophie Harding | Dylan Williams

Location: elysium gallery, 16 College Street, Swansea, SA1 5BH

Details: Three young Swansea College of Art students were chosen to be this year, the Beep Painting Biennial artists’ in residence. Selected by Professor Catrin Webster and elysium/Beep Director Jonathan Powell, these emerging artists will be offered valuable studio time, mentorship and an exhibition at elysium gallery this summer.

Kena Brown’s work analyses the forms of emotions, creating a visual concept through automatism. Her paintings document thought process and memories through instinctive mark making and line. Colour arises spontaneously from thoughts, and a title is triggered from memories. The paintings explore the unseen and the primal instincts of what it is to be a painter.

Sophie Harding’s jarring portraits are focused around the human condition – psychology and conflicts of the mind. The artist challenges the conventional ideas of portraiture by obscuring the identity of the subject rather than depicting it. Facial recognition is difficult as the artist explores notions of identity, fragility and absence.

Dylan Williams documents everyday life through daily walks and the constant observing of his surroundings that trigger his energetic and lively paintings. Inspired by the landscapes of the old masters, William’s dense hurried lines also echo painters such as Leon Kossoff and John Virtue.

www.elysiumgallery.com

Konstantinos Grigoriadis

Location: National Touring Gallery of Contemporary Art Wales

Details: 'Devolution K' consists of paintings and sculptural forms based on the experimental use of automatic drawing, found objects and decalcomania. The deliberate accidents and aleatory forms create the space to explore and illustrate the connection between past and future, microcosm and macrocosm, dark and light. Figures in psychedelic dreamscapes, spiritual entities and complex structures are situated in the blurred landscape of evolution creating a visual approach of fauna and flora within a conceptual time and space.

Konstantinos Grigoriadis was born in 1985 in Kozani, Greece. Since his early years, he started expressing himself as a punk musician, painter and illustrator. Along with his studies at the A.T.E. I. of Thessaloniki, he worked in many theatres and projects dealing with set design, sculpture, scenic painting and music performances. Simultaneously, he attended a modern art course at the M.M.C.A of Thessaloniki, and took part in the 1st Workshop of traditional architecture buildings restoration in north Greece. Konstantinos completed his BA in Fine Art (3D and sculptural practice) at the University of Wales Trinity St David in 2014. Currently based in Swansea, he has become involved with steel props making and scenic projects for the film industry.

The new National touring Gallery of Contemporary Art Wales might be miniature in its size, but big in its ideas. Providing modern exhibition facilities within a ‘building’ that is the best in modern Welsh architecture whilst designed to travel and inhabit different venues across Wales.The gallery is still under construction and will develop over its many future exhibitions.

www.nationalgalleryofcontemporaryartwales.com