ELINOR EVANS

In both her work on canvas and paper, Elinor Evans takes liberties with the natural order of things, her aim to better understand the complex relationship between man and beast. In anthropomorphic stunts that echo Classical mythologies or the religious personification of animal deities, she mounts foxes on horses in subverted pictures of the hunt and, in intimate one-on-one encounters, transpses human heads for animals’ to question complacent notions of hierarchy.Ironically too she uses masks in an attempt to expose, as she cuts beneath the surface of these moments of interaction and gets to grip with what it is that binds and separates us.

Elinor Evans is a graduate of Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art where in 2004 she won the Amlin Prize for most promising young artist.

Welsh by origin (she won the Young Wales Exhibition in Conwy , North Wales, earlier this year) Elinor currently divdes her time between Wales, London and Spain where she exhibits regularly and is a founding member of The Shaman Project, a moving exhibition of music, art and performance that has been based in Salamanca and Bilbao.

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William Selwyn
Rheilffordd Eryri
14" x 10.5"
Sold

Claudia Williams
Coastal scene
Oil
20.5" x 23"
POA

CLAUDIA WILLIAMS

Claudia Williams was born in Purley, Surrey in 1933. Artistic success came early, as a schoolgirl in 1949 she entered the National Exhibition of Children’s Art at the Royal Institute Galleries. Nearly 47,000 school children from around the country entered the competition and the distinguished judges headed by John Rothenstein (Director of the Tate Gallery) and Herbert Read (President of the Society for Education through Art) were unanimous in their decision to give the principal award to Claudia Williams. She received a Training Scholarship and attended Chelsea School of Art between 1950 to 1953.

Immediately after Chelsea she married the artist Gwilym Prichard and their first home was above a newsagent’s shop on Anglesey; then they moved into a council house at Llangefni. They had four children and they worked hard as parents and painters, enduring considerable financial hardship. After the children were tucked up in bed they set to work in a shared studio in the cramped front room of the house.

In spite of the constraints of raising a young family, Claudia Williams exhibited fifty-four paintings in her first solo show at the Tegfryn Gallery in Menai Bridge. She was also a regular contributor to exhibitions organised by the Howard Roberts Gallery in Cardiff, the Welsh Arts Council, Society for Education through Art at the National Museum of Wales and the National Eisteddfod of Wales. She also painted commissioned portraits.

By the time she reached her early fifties the cold damp climate at the foothills of Snowdonia was affecting her health. It persuaded them to sell their home and move to a warm, dry climate. So in 1984, when both artists had a well-established reputation in Wales, they sold their home. Not knowing what the future held in store, they drove across Europe in a car laden with camping equipment and art materials heading for the island of Skiathos where they had been given the opportunity to look after a friend’s dog, with free accommodation for the winter.

In Spring they headed south to Santorini. They made their way back through Italy, lived in Provence, then settled in a small house near the harbour at Vannes in Brittany’s Golfe de Morbihan. In France, life continued much as it had done in Wales where they were once again forced to live frugally and working long hours in their shared studio. In 1991 they moved inland to Rochefort-en-Terre, a quiet unspoilt medieval town of stone houses built on a rock where they now enjoyed a temperate climate, longer daylight hours and an improved quality of light. The move to back to Tenby in 2000 represents the twentieth move of house during their married life.

Family life has been an enduring theme for Claudia Williams. All her paintings have been based on human relationships and figures in close proximity. For her family life and her activities as a painter have been inseparable. She has always acknowledged the limitations imposed by her domestic circumstances; for her they provided the perfect opportunity for a harmonious integration of art and life.

Since childhood Claudia Williams has drawn and painted those around her. The domestic daily routines of women and children provide an opportunity for paintings that focus on social interaction. She is fascinated by the sea; the rituals of bathing and beach life have provided rich subject. Williams has a particular sensibility towards the human condition, to gesture and facial expression. This perceptiveness is made manifest in many of her paintings by an inherent sense of design, sensitive handling of colour and confident figure drawing.

Williams observes all aspects of life around her. She paints interiors that are lived in, littered with coffee cups, half-eaten croissants and used table napkins. With a flattening of the spatial relationships and oblique perspective, she depicts her subjects as preoccupied, caught adopting distracted awkward poses.

The paintings have significance beyond the sitting room, bedroom, kitchen or bathroom. Williams uses the human figure as metaphor, as symbol and as a vehicle for abstract concepts. The paintings are derived from observation and her family experiences but her figures are not portraits. The act of recording appearance is secondary to Williams’ endeavour to suggest physical types. She is a keen observer of human relationships and seeks to evoke inner feeling through descriptions of outer form and record it with integrity and insight.

David Grosvenor
Criccieth Castle
Watercolour
12.5" x 8.5"
£325

DAVID GROSVENOR

David, who has lived in the tiny village of Rhyd near Porthmadog, North Wales for 13 years, was born in 1956 in Burnham-on-Crouch on the Essex coast. His parents were Missionaries who worked in Madagascar where David was to spend his early childhood. Both his father and grandfather were Congregational ministers and both, in their way, keen amateur artists. His grandfather would sit painting seascapes at his home in Essex and sell his work to passing visitors. His father, who was also an enthusiastic ornithologist, was attempting to produce an illustrated book of the unique birdlife of the island of Madagascar but died before completing the project. So, as a child, David and his younger brother Tim were provided with paper, pencils and paints with which to amuse themselves. It is therefore not surprising that Tim too is now a professional artist who owns his own gallery in the south west of France. At school, David excelled at Art and, when attending secondary school in Winchester, he was taken under the wing of a particularly helpful art teacher.

NICK HOLLY

Nick Holly was born in 1968 and brought up in the district of St Thomas in the industrial east side of Swansea, where he still lives. He studied at Swansea School of Art and Design, and shortly after leaving was given his first solo show at the Attic Gallery in 1989. Several solo shows have followed both in Swansea and Cardiff, and more recently he has exhibited in London. His work has been purchased by the National Library of Wales. He has held numerous artist workshops in schools around Swansea and is involved with the local theatre both in acting and set production.

Nick Holly's early work described streets of terraced houses, often set in hillsides, which are typically found across South Wales. Recently, the people who live there have become more prominent in his paintings, portraying the life of the communities who inhabit "his" streets. As his work has developed so has his reputation as a chronicler of the urban and industrial landscape of South Wales. At first sight his painting might seem naïve but the complicated perspectives, the life he gives to the figures, his concern for composition might contradict this assumption.

Now known as the Welsh Lowry, hasbeen exhibiting since 1989: The Attic gallery, Swansea marina, the Albany gallery, Cardiff, Oriel Pen y Fan gallery, Brecon, Fountain Fine Art, Llandeilo, The Russell gallery, Putney, London, also has work in a private collection in the National Library of Wales.

Nick, best known for his paintings of the industrial eastside of Swansea: Swansea bay, the docks, Kilvey hill or your street bustling with cats, dogs, people passing by and children playing games in the street. Nick has worked with many schools and colleges, from pre-school age to adult Education, on demonstrations and various art projects. He also has a theatre Background and is an accomplished scenic artist and small prop maker.

Adrian Hughes
Penrhyn Uchaf
Acrylic
19" x 15"
£950

ADRIAN HUGHES

HELEN LOPEZ

Helen Lopez was born in London. She studied at the Chelsea School of Art and at Liverpool Polytechnic where she gained a BA (hons) in Fine Art. Since 1998, Helen has had nine solo exhibitions in Wales and has shown her work in several group exhibitions. Her work can also be seen in permanent exhibitions at The Williamson Museum, Birkenhead and at The Conway Centre, Anglesey.

She lives and works on Anglesey and shows across Wales, and more recently has become an international Artist, she has had paintings on show in San Francisco, Antwerp, Dublin and New York. Helen depicts the landscape in abstract terms and works allegorically with figures.

DONALD MCINTYRE

Donald McIntyre was born in Yorkshire of Scottish parents in 1923 and spent his formative years in the west coast of Scotland. There had settled a colony of artists near his home at Garelochhead under the influence of James Wright RSW. McIntyre was to study painting under this major artist and the relationship of teacher and pupil was to develop into friendship.

Under Wright he developed a palette firmly rooted in the Scottish Colourist Tradition. While the desire to take up a career in painting was always present, the professions beckoned and McIntyre studied dentistry in Glasgow and remained as a dentist both in the army and latterly in school service until he was forty.

Like many artists he was inspired by the landscape of his childhood and his earliest memories are of the dramatic west coast of Scotland. He has a love of the coastline of the British Isles which sees him regularly exploring the country to draw and paint. Smaller works may be completed in situ, but sketches, which capture rapidly changing light and mood, are taken back to his studio at home as a reference for his painting.

He has exhibited widely with one man exhibitions in The Royal Cambrian Academy, Conwy, Thackeray Gallery, London and Racines Gallery, Brussels amongst others. He has also exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy, and Royal Society of Marine Artists. He is a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art and his work may be found in numerous public and private collections.

OWEN MEILIR

GWILYM PRITCHARD

Gwilym Pritchard is a native of Llanystumdwy on the banks of the Dwyfor and was given his early education at Porthmadog Grammar School, later entering the Normal College at Bangor and Birmingham Art College. Early on in his career, he received the Saxon Barton Prize, an award for young artists administered by the Royal Cambrian Academy, then, in 1955 he was adjudged second in the award of the award of the Gold Medal at the National Eisteddfod at Pwllheli. During these years in the middle fifties, he took up the post of Art master at Llangefni, which was to last eleven years.

Whilst pursuing his teaching career, he used to exhibit his work regularly, even undertaking commissions for mosaics, among them one for the catholic church of St Michael in Ruabon.

In 1964 he forsook secondary teaching for a post at Ratcliffe College, Worcestershire, later returning to Wales and to secondary teaching anew, to settle in Anglesey on his appointment to the Art department of Friars' School in Bangor.

Glen Seldon
Old Cottages
Oil
19.5" x 15.5"
£550

GLEN SELDON

Farmer Below Snowdon
Limited Edition (250)
POA

Kyffin Williams has received many honours, which acknowledge both his own outstanding work and the generosity he has shown towards other artists. The University of Wales, the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorian and the Contemporary Art Society of Wales are all among bodies who have conferred honours on him. He is a senior Royal Academician, and has been President of the Royal Cambrian Academy for many years. In 1982 he was given an O.B.E. for services to the Arts, and in the New Year Honours list 2000, Kyffin was given a knighthood by Her Majesty the Queen.

Kyffin sadly died on 1st September 2006, which is a great loss to us all. However, his spirit lives on in all his paintings.

Born in Neath, West Glamorgan, in 1941, Mike Jones lives and paints in the Swansea Valley and has earned his reputation for evocative portrayals of the Welsh landscape and its people. His impressive interpretations range from the fishing boats in the docks of Swansea to the isolated hill farms in the valley and the Black Mountains.

Mike Jones has exhibited widely throughout Wales for the last ten years. Although essentially self-taught, Mike has a drive to expand his knowledge and to push the boundaries of his work. He is constantly looking to evolve and this is surely the sign of an important contribution to the contemporary art scene in Wales.

Roy Burrows
Llyn Geirionydd
Oil
34" x 20"
Sold