January at Mostyn Oriel

I took a trip up to north Wales last weekend to see Gareth Griffith's exhibition Shelter at Mostyn Oriel in which I had a small piece of work. The show was really lovely (it closed on 15th January), about 60 artists had contributed and the work was shown on a simple trestle table as a 'field' of shelters. A crazy artists campsite of miniature dwellings! All sorts of ingenious solutions had been devised to the brief to make a shelter 20 x 20 x 15 cm out of found materials or materials to hand.

I was also glad to get to see the other shows currently running in the gallery, Ha Ha Road in the main gallery space takes a look at the use of humour in contemporary art - "The selected artworks demonstrate how acts of absurdity, irrationality or playfulness can interrupt reality and momentarily destabilise common assumptions." The perfect antidote to post-Christmas gloom, many of the works genuinely raised a smile. 

Grazia Toderi - Orbite Rossa - seen here

I also enjoyed Grazia Toderi's video Orbite Rossa installed in gallery 6 as part of the gallery's Love Video series. Night-time cityscapes are layered and superimposed  in a slowly changing vista of lights. The result is a mesmerizing and slightly disorientating experience, the gradual alterations to the landscape and the impossible movements of light within it set up beautiful. "...luminous geometries...". Personally, I saw a kind of melancholic dystopia - Blade Runner came to mind with its nocturnal rooftop city scenes - a balance of beauty and sadness in the universal city-at-night.

Shelter @ Oriel Mostyn

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Absente

I was asked to contribute a piece of work to the newly opened show in gallery 4 at Mostyn in Llandudno, Shelter. The show features the work of over 60 artists in Wales who were asked to respond to the brief set by the originator of the Shelter concept Gareth Griffith. 

Griffith began by making paintings of a tent in which he went on family holidays and through this exploration started to construct small shelters which he used as maquettes for further paintings. After creating a number of these pieces, he invited other artists to make similar constructions.

We were asked to make a structure 20 x 20 x 15 inches out of found materials or materials to hand. My piece is called Absente and uses the top of a bird-box from the woods by my house, an absinthe spoon, skewers and chopsticks that I found in the kitchen draw and a cover made from scraps of white fabric stitched together to create a canopy.

The show runs from 3 December - 15 January 2011.

Mostyn Open 2011

Helen Sear - Sightline 4 - Seen here

Mostyn gallery in Llandudno will be showing the works chosen for the Mostyn Open 2011 from 21 May. This is the first of the prestigious open exhibitions to be held at the gallery since it opened after major refurbishment and will now be a international biennial event. Work from 48 artists has been selected by Artist, Richard Wentworth, Curator, Karen MacKinnon and Head of Exhibitions at Mostyn, Anders Pleass. There is a £10,000 prize up for grabs.

We Have The Mirrors, We Have The Plans

We made a trip to North Wales yesterday to visit the newly redesigned and rebuilt Mostyn gallery in Llandudno. Three years and £5.1 million of investment have transformed the gallery into a top class space for contemporary art and a feather in the cap for art in Wales.

The first exhibition is a survey of contemporary artists working in Wales. Five curators have been invited (Amanda Farr - Oriel Davies, Hannah Firth - Chapter Arts Centre, Karen MacKinnon - Glynn Vivian Gallery, Eve Ropek - Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Chris Coppock - Formerly Ffotogallery) to choose a representative group show of 25 artists and artist partnerships. The show is planned to be repeated every four years to 'take the pulse' of the arts scene in Wales.

The building is beautiful - the guiding principle has been "Simplicity, subtlety and sophistication - plus one or two surprises" and that has been achieved with bells on. Rumours tell that the opening on Friday night was sardine full with folk from across Wales and beyond and fairly riotous, a fitting celebration for the project's realisation. The gallery retains its 1901 terracotta facade and is now topped off with a golden spire functioning as a landmark for the gallery. The project has been designed by Dominic Williams, architect of the Baltic Centre in Newcastle. The building has six gallery spaces, educational facilities, a new cafe and shop space. Improved behind-the-scenes facilities have upgraded the conservation status of the gallery which will allow for significant loans from other collections.

The show is a good survey of current practice, some omissions, some surprises; but good and well considered curation. The hardback catalogue which accompanies the show (at a bargain £5) is a good investment too. I enjoyed the show as a whole and particularly Carwyn Evans work - a series of dry-point prints of singular ploughed fields, a collection of occasional tables 'ploughed' on their tops like a mini agricultural landscape. The series of Peter Finnemore's photographs from various stages of his career, exceptional, visionary work. Sean Edwards formal investigations of the everyday potential of sculpture. Berminghan and Robinson's hut constructed from the archived documents of Oriel Mostyn prior to the expansion. Richard Higlett's/Wally French's painted paint brushes. Paul Emanuel's sheep fleece studies...

Carwyn Evans

The strangest moment of the day for me, however happened shortly after we arrived. We walked in on a performance piece by Aberystwyth based Showroom, Y Term Cymraeg am 'Road Trip' (The Welsh term for 'Road Trip')a re-enactment of a former performance at the National Eisteddfod in Bala last year. The last part of the performance was a tombola using cloakroom tickets we had been given at the door, the prize was the actual tombola - a beautifully made object which had been a feature of the Showroom socials that the group had held in Aberystwyth. I won! My ticket was 158. I will honour the spirit of the tombola and cogitate on it's next artistic manifestation...watch this space.