Yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru 2011

Bedwyr Williams

The National Eisteddfod was in Wrexham this year and I am really glad we made the journey up from Carmarthen to see it. The general consensus amongst us was that Y Lle Celf was the best we had seen for a few years, there was a real sense of cohesion in the curation. I felt this particular show avoided some of the traps into which it has fallen in previous years, it was considered, fresh and forward facing - unequivocally Welsh but looking outwards to the wider art community.

Bedwyr Williams

The Gold Medal this year went to Caernarvon based Bedwyr Williams with a series of works, some of which were editions of works showing concurrently at Oriel Davies in Newtown. I particularly liked his modified Wellington boots, standing on white plinths and stuffed with straw, they are carved with stylised rural images - like a lino cut. Familiar, nostalgic and daft they encapsulate something particular and contrary about living a contemporary life in a rural community.

Peter Bodenham - What we are at home with

The Gold Medal for Craft and Design was given to Peter Bodenham for his ceramic work What we are at home with, Peter is Head of Ceramics of Coleg Sir Gâr, Carmarthen. Two other craft medals were awarded to London based Cary Davies for her ceramics and Sean Vicary for his animated film Re-told a mythical response to the building of a supermarket in Cardigan. Sean is a little curiously placed in the Craft and Design category, but his working process using built models and stop frame animation is undoubtedly painstakingly 'crafted', so perhaps it makes more sense than one might assume. I wrote to congratulate Carys on her win as we stock her work in our gallery shop at Oriel Myrddin and she told me she bought a pair of hand made clogs at the Eisteddfod to celebrate her win which she calls Clogiau Goffa Wrecsam / the Eisteddfod memorial clogs they've been causing a bit of stir at Brixton tube station apparently!

Antonia Dewhurst - Gimme Shelter

Other work I enjoyed in this years show included a series of Penny Hallas drawings, Antonia Dewhurst's Gimme Shelter series of drawn and constructed huts,  Jonathan Anderson's Coal Dust Mandala's and concrete houses, paintings by Andreas Ruthi and Neale Howells and Roger Lougher's bilingual road signs which discuss 'the sublime'.

Without Words / Heb Eiriau

Within Y Lle Celf, an installation entitled Without Words / Heb Eiriau, featured the photographic work of Geoff Charles a Wrexham press photographer who died in 2002 in his 90's. The work was selected from a collection at The National Library of Wales by Peter Finnemore and Russell Roberts. Specifically re-printed for the show, they are extraordinary images - exhibited without explanatory titles they capture now-forgotten events, situations and people - read more here.

Nine Artists' Films

Jacob Whittaker - Tying Tone Arms - seen here

Tonight we went to see the screening of Nine Artists' Films at Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan, part of the 2010 Film Festival. Seven locally based artists, working with film showed a series of nine short films.

The show was really well attended and it's been a topic for conversation today. The filmmakers were invited onto the stage after the showing for a Q & A session with the audience, this really helped to give some context to the works.

Simon Whitehead's work Anemos was commissioned by the BBC. Sean Vicary's Sea of Glass was commissioned as a response to music in an audio-visual performance. Rueben Knutson made his film 1000 Days as the outcome of a residency in the haematology department of a hospital. Jacob Whittaker and Penny Jones' Taith Cranogwyn operated as a documentary. The other contributions were made as art films. One possibly needed this background to interpret the films in relation to each other; the different approaches made the dialogue between the selection a little problematic.

I am easily seduced by classy production, and in this vein I enjoyed Anemos, a visually rich film of a choreographed performance which personifies the element of the wind and the production of wind energy. The choreography was compelling and worked beautifully with the costume of grey-blue silk dress and coat, the rich lighting created narrative. Some of the small gestural hand movements in the piece were exquisite . Sean Vicary's Sea of Glass was similarly classy, a sophisticated stop motion piece animating out sized shells spinning against the Cardigan coastline.

My personal favourites were Jacob Whittaker's Three Vinyl which "...uses found (Hi-Fi and sound equipment) objects, and my aim is to use them, as much as is possible, in the state in which they are found. Basic repairs are made merely to achieve some sound, with any problems leading to their being discarded playing an important part of the composing process. With turntables (the artist) often intervenes further by tying the tone arm back in order to interrupt normal play. The work is then produced live without headphones or post-production, using randomly selected loops from often randomly selected records."

Of the three pieces I had seen Tying Tone Arms before, an aesthetically beautiful, slightly voyeuristic, nostalgic film of decks backed with the drones of stuck vinyl; cacophonous music that develops its own rhythms and tensions. The middle film Shaky uses a faulty record deck that shakes and shudders the needle across the vinyl making a bizarre visual effect as the tone arm vibrates alongside the boings, scratches and tremblings of the sound track. It has a peculiar tension and a curious sense of passive-aggression in the juddering malfunction of the machinery and the fate of the vinyl it reacts with.

I enjoyed Penny Jones' Rant, a silent short of the artist in various outfits and in various locations raging and ranting at the camera about unknown grievances. It is important to know that Penny is an older woman because it completely alters the contexts of the work. A young woman behaving in the same manner would convey completely different signifiers. It was uncomfortably comical and had resonances with the inflential Carmarthenshire filmmaker and photographer, Peter Finnemore.

Rowan O'Neill's Menyw a Ddaeth o Gatraeth / A Woman Came from Catterick had some lovely motifs within it, a nostalgic, symbol laden film utilising props and film techniques that took the piece into the realm of folk tale. "My Grandmother moved from the area close to Catterick in the mid 50s to settle in rural West Wales. In my Grandmother’s suitcase I keep the relics of a long forgotten strife…” Rowan references the militaristic contemporary and historic roots of Catterick with a repetitive sequence showing a soldier rhythmically cutting a huge pile of carrots with her Grandmother's kitchen knife - a beautiful but disturbing vignette.

Well done to Theatr Mwldan for the initiative, more please!


Left to right: Penny Jones, Jacob Whittaker, Simon Whitehead, Rueben Knutson, Sean Vicary, Ruth Jones, Rowan O'Neill