Ceramic Collection at Glynn Vivian Gallery

C. 1814 Transfer design by James Brindley.

Whilst at the Glynn Vivian in Swansea, I had a proper look at the porcelain and Swansea china collection. There are some beautiful and lively historical pieces, really charming. Not much in the way of contemporary work, which is a shame, there's some fantastic makers working in Wales at the moment. However, the collections at Aberystwyth Arts Centre and the National Museum in Cardiff perhaps serve that function.

Tim Davies, Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Tim Davies - Figures in a Landscape

I was pleased to get down to Swansea to see Tim Davies' new show, Between a Rock and a Hard Place at the Glynn Vivian Gallery on Saturday. I enjoyed it more than I expected to. I've always liked Davies' work but I sometimes feel a little suffocated by the political content. This new work was nicely balanced; the political was integrally present but not overbearing. What I actually like most about Davies' work is the process, the meticulous repetition and the materiality, and this show did not disappoint. Throughout the exhibition, he uses postcards as the basis for the work. The foyer was particularly impressive showing the ongoing Figures in a Landscape 2004-08 series of tourist postcards their figures, often in local or 'national' dress, are cut out leaving a ghostly absence shadowed by the sensitive lighting.

Tim Davies - Figures in a Landscape

Installed film sequences in the main gallery of Remembrance Day ceremonies at Aberystwyth and Swansea are timely and poignant. A second film piece, Kilkenny Shift 2009, is aesthetically beautiful and conceptually sensitive - a film sequence ascending and descending the servants' steps in Kilkenny Castle in Ireland. Davies has made previous work using castles as tropes for power, this piece is far more subtle and intimate, commenting on the repetitious and uncelebrated lives of those who gave their lives in service. The message is conveyed through absence and loss - these are themes that resonate throughout the show.

The main gallery shows 40 images, once again using the vehicle of the postcard, each showing the image of a bridge meticulously isolated from its environment through a process of sanding. The images are, again, beautiful. The message is subtle, the bridge as metaphor for connection, power, negotiation. The images also focus in on the structure of the bridge as a strategic military target, a tangible symbol of connection and flow.

Sara Hubbs

Sara Hubbs - Angle Grind - seen here

Thanks to Abigail Doan for reminding me about American artist Sara Hubbs today. Sara works with old shoes using their inherent sculptural qualities to make new assembled forms: "... I create assemblages from discarded remnants of shoes and other personal ephemera. I investigate the relationship between these forms, and their materials while at the same time, providing these relics with new meaning. I am interested in the play between narrative and form and how it shapes the way we see. Looking to use and accumulation as points of contact with the world, muted and unseen spaces take shape..."

Sara Hubbs - Frequency Radio - seen here

I have often excused the compulsion to buy shoes by claiming them to be wearable sculptures (oh, the indulgence and self delusion!). Of all the personal possessions surely shoes are the most poignant as they mould their substance to our bodies and the nuances of our movement, recording our travels and encounters.

Sara Hubbs - The 4 M's: Material, Movement, Metaphor, Memory - seen here

Sandra Winkworth

Sandra Winkworth - Pick Me - seen here

I really like these beautiful book works by Australian artist/print maker Sandra Winkworth. Pick Me is a concertina book of tender drawings showing eight Australian marsupials often overlooked by urban folk. Their imploring eyes look out from the pages which can be arranged in an intense little circle or arranged into a 'leaf litter' pile. Drawn with Biro onto recycled prints and book pages, the piece uses the everyday practice of doodling and sketching on scraps and oddments to draw attention to the everyday wildlife we take for granted.

Another series called Lost and Found uses similar techniques of pen on found papers.

Sandra Winkworth - Lost and Found - seen here

Patrick Haines - Myth and History, The Bristol Gallery

Patrick Haines - At Rest - seen here

I blogged recently about a small bronze which was part of the Red Shift show hosted by The Collective First Bristol Group. My favourite piece was by sculptor, Patrick Haines, a small bronze of a dead bird discretely placed on a window sill. I read a review (thank you Marcus!) today of an exhibition in The Bristol Gallery called Myth and History in which Haines' work is represented. From the images on the website I found the small, intimate pieces really subtle and beautiful - I am not such a fan of the larger and more literally interpreted pieces.

Patrick Haines - King of All Birds - seen here

I'm very interested in the folk custom that informs The King of All Birds, another version of which is shown here, a wren house from St Fagan's National Museum of Wales near Cardiff.

Emily Speed

Inhabitant - Emily Speed - seen here

One of the speakers at yesterday's seminar at Chapter - The Centre Is Here - was Emily Speed. Emily spoke to us about the way she uses blogging to talk about her practice, but also to raise issues of interest to artists through entries on a-n magazine and her blog Getting Paid.

When I came home I had a look at her work - about which she was very modest in her talk. Fragile, vulnerable, in between existing and not existing, temporary - her work explores ideas about transience and often makes reference to architecture and shelters, hiding places and spaces. Sensitive - almost unbearably so, she makes sculptural installation works, artists books, drawings; more recent work has involved performance also.

Emily Speed - My Humble Abode - seen here

"More a multiple than a bookwork, this piece involved 21 envelopes, each with a different scene inside the window. An exploration of how where we live shapes us as people, each scene sits in the place of an address."

Emily Speed - seen here

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

Chapter Arts Centre has been redeveloped, and reopened a week or so ago. Set up in the 1970's by a group of artists including Christine Kinsey and Brian Jones, the Centre has been an extraordinarily successful and much loved hub for the arts in Canton, Cardiff ever since. It is housed in an Edwardian red-brick school away from the city centre and has always been able to attract a diversity of people through its doors, it has a very particular identity linked to the egalitarian attitude of its foundation. The brief for the redevelopment was to keep the essential heart of the place intact, whilst updating and improving the facilities and raising the architectural spaces to match the ambitions of the organisation. The work has been undertaken by architect Ash Sakula and interior designers Gidden and Rees.

I think it's been really successful, it's a lovely space, and it still feels like Chapter. I went to a seminar; The Centre is Here, (part of May You Live In Interesting Times - a three day Festival of Creative Technology) covering aspects of social networking in the arts community and how artists are using these platforms in their practice - very interesting.