- Venue
- Oriel Scala
- Location
- Wales
A bold new initiative by Oriel Scala’s co-operative of artists in inviting recent North Wales graduates to join them as guest members during August is proving to be a fantastic success. The Scala Artists’ Co-operative comprises a group of 27 professional artists whose ages range from early twenties through to eighty and who exhibit and run Oriel Scala in Prestatyn on the North Wales coast. Knowing from experience how tough it can be to break into the professional art world after finishing college, the Scala artists decided to offer a group of the years’ local graduates much more than an exhibition opportunity. Throughout August the graduates would become guest members submitting their own work alongside that of the members, curating and hanging the exhibition, helping to staff the gallery and attending meetings of the co-operative on exactly the same terms as the professional member artists. Oriel Scala being a small commercial gallery is a very different environment to that of the university degree show or public gallery ‘open’ exhibitions that these emerging artists might have previously experienced. Small commercial galleries such as Oriel Scala are however for vast numbers of professional artists an important platform on which they rely to exhibit and sell their work. As always at Oriel Scala there is work in a great variety of styles and media and enormous care is taken by the volunteer hanging team, which changes for each exhibition, in the selection and hanging of work to ensure a harmonious and professional exhibition. The addition of graduate work provided an even greater variety of media but the 14 emerging artists who curated and hung the August Exhibition with the aid of members Wayne Clark and Barry (BadgeMakesArt) Morris more than rose to the challenge and it is proving to be a great success with the public whilst the are co-operative artists and the graduates are all absolutely delighted with how the project is going.
The Preview night on Tuesday August 3rd saw established artists, friends, colleagues and collectors from across North Wales and beyond pack Oriel Scala to see what members and graduates had to offer as this small gallery which only opened in December 2009 is rapidly gaining a big reputation in the North Wales art world. Respected and highly successful artist Sonja Benskin-Mescher RCA the opening speaker commented that the gallery ‘is a testament to all those that started it, run it and show here’ and that the ‘standard is high, worthy of any big city’. Directing her talk primarily to the graduates she explained that their chosen path would no doubt contain setbacks and difficulties but also successes to cherish. Each would be another step in their education to be learned from and above all enjoyed. She also remarked that on leaving University the graduates were leaving behind the support system that had nurtured them and that the Oriel Scala initiative provided the graduates with a unique opportunity to build a new support network amongst established local professional artists. Councillor John Bellis then told the audience of his poor working class childhood in an industrialised coastal town and that the road to success came not just from talent but also from hard work, determination and enthusiasm. The graduates at Oriel Scala are certainly showing they fulfil all these requirements.
With work from 27 co-operative artists and also 14 graduates there is plenty to see but unfortunately too many to review individually in this article and so I will largely confine myself to reviewing the graduate work.
Ten applied artists from Glyndwr University in Wrexham are represented. All their work shows a high level of craftsmanship together with exciting and innovative design ideas. Sara Piper-Heap’s silver jewellery designs are reflected in her beautiful silver on gilding metal table sculpture Arc. Arc is somehow reminiscent of a centrepiece from a medieval royal table and yet at the same time totally contemporary. On the adjacent plinth and in complete contrast sit Karis Tomlin’s eccentric large scale felt pieces. Feather light and yet with links as large as an ocean liner’s anchor chain, Tomlin’s ‘necklaces’ tumble down the plinth in tones of reds, golds and greens Are these wearable sculpture or are they jewellery? Jeweller Roz Mellor clearly derives her inspiration from her previous career as a florist and her passion for the world of nature. Delicate organic silver forms curl around driftwood or twigs which are then set inside glass display domes. Mellor attempts to bridge the gap between the old and the new by presenting her beautiful modern jewellery pieces as if from a natural history museum collection. Five graduates in the exhibition specialise in glass but that it is where the similarities end. Helen Davies uses glass fusion, kiln forming and painting techniques to create her ethereal panels which are deeply influenced by her coastal location and reminiscent of Turner watercolour sketches captured in glass. Laura O’Driscoll works with paté de verre. Her delicate little vessels double layered in pale pink and white float like ghostly crystallised boats on their slate base. In total contrast Jack McClafferty water-jet cuts, screen-print and then fire polishes the flat glass faces of his contemporary architectural vessels before linking and anchoring them together with curved oak side sections. The chandelier and ornate vessels produced by Katy Frost at first glance seem to belong in a bygone age of carriages, crinolines and ballrooms but inspection reveals that these iconic shapes are firmly rooted in the twenty first century by her use of bold modern colours and high technology production techniques. Kim Disley’s current work has developed from glimpses of refracted and reflected sunlight playing on surfaces. Disley has attempted to capture the complex shifts of colour and pattern in her beautifully constructed and finished geometric glass forms. Two ceramicists show clearly how clay can be used in very different ways. Helen Gittens refers back to her literary background with large hand built textural forms which she then uses as surfaces on which to scribe and paint her tributes ‘For the Poets’ Amy Hultum however makes delicate tableware from slip cast porcelain. The subtle white crackle glaze is occasionally relieved by delicate botanical impressions highlighted with soft touches of pastel colour. Her clever ‘easy to stow away’ cake stand is both pretty and functional comprising a stacked tower of upside down cup shapes between graded sized plates.
The four FdA graduates from Coleg Llandrillo are painters. Chad Cooper uses both stencil and traditional painting techniques to create his architecturally inspired panels and his use of a restricted palette intentionally directs the attention of the viewer towards the linear and spatial elements of his work. Kristian Rees-Dykes has created an atmospheric interpretation of the London skyline which almost appears to float across the canvas. Entitled ‘My London’ Rees-Dykes distorts scale, perspective, colour and tone to create an illusion of London as seen through the artist’s eyes. Lauren Ward and Samantha Friston’s paintings centre on colour. Ward’s controlled application of short vertical strokes of colour laid side by side and row upon row investigate complimentary colour and repetition. Friston’s spontaneous floating ‘kisses’ of multicoloured fluorescent acrylic paint on a black background were designed to be hung in a UV lit blacked out environment but nevertheless work well on the gallery walls. All four Llandrillo FdA graduates continue their studies on to BA(Hons) in the following year and it will be fascinating to watch as the work of these promising young painters develops and matures.
Having reviewed the graduates it remains only to comment on a few of the co-operative members’ work. Llinos Lanini shows the photograph ‘Siop y Pentre’ which won her the Welsh Photographer of the Year prize in June. This photograph of a Welsh village shopkeeper in her late seventies at her till is not just technically superb but eloquently captures a time and place that has largely passed into history. Award winning photographer Margaret Salisbury’s ‘Happiness’ received a Highly Commended Certificate at the Edinburgh International Exhibition and was accepted in the Royal Photographic Society International Exhibition. Jan Miller’s sculpture background is evident in her large close up photographs where the elements of shape and structure predominate. Frequently cheeky, sometimes risqué and always thought provoking Gary Sheridan carefully stages his photographs. His photograph ‘Cat crap and all’ should ensure viewers look quite differently at their lawns.
Potters are well represented. Simon Shaw’s dishes and amphorae with their beautiful blue barium glazes are reminiscent of tropical seas and skies whilst Willie Carter’s Noah’s Ark with a motley assortment of cartoon animals clinging valiantly to the Ark sides provokes smiles. Wayne Clark’s huge flattened wood fired jugs sitting on their chunky black clay bases become sculptural pieces and ‘Miner’ by portrait sculpture Judy Pemberton speaks eloquently of the mining history of Wales whilst Katy Scarlett Howard’s fat lady looks on quizzically.
Painters Claire Halliday, Judith Samuel, Keith Millward, Lynda Waggett and Don Whalley describe the beautiful coast, mountains and country that surround them in oils, pastels or watercolour whilst Jan Gardner’s mixed media paintings of magical places glow with intense vibrant colours which are then carefully worked onto in layers of finely detailed drawing and print. There is something for everybody in this exhibition from John Davies’s exquisitely carved life size birds perched on twisted and tangled bleached twigs of driftwood to the dolls that ‘Badge’ turns into anatomical text book versions of their former selves. There’s ‘Barbie’ type ‘Jennifer’ a skeleton but still wearing her ‘bling’ and gold platform sandals or porcelain collectable doll ‘Precious’ in her flowered lace trimmed dress but now a skeleton all be it one with rosy cheeks. Michael McKevitt’s superbly executed paintings are both fascinating and disturbing. There is a narrative to be discovered but perhaps one that we would rather not uncover. In ‘Isolation’ a comfortable armchair is set against a deeply distressed backdrop which is so well painted that it takes close inspection to check that it isn’t actually three dimensional. On the floor in front of the armchair lies a knife. It’s quite small and one might miss it on first glance but once seen it begins to dominate the viewer with unanswered questions. McKevitt paints solely in muted dark tones for colour has no place here to detract from the underlying sense of menace that ‘Isolation’ leaves us with.
We move from the abstract art of Ali Jackson to traditional portraiture by Bernard Willems and then across to the contemporary jewellery of Cerys Alonso and Sarah Wilkie and the delicate textiles and felt of Megs Owen and Chris Baker. Glass artist Katrine Taylor and printmaker Jo Clark add their dashes of colour around the gallery whilst photograph Geoff Abbott’s life size black and white altered image of a tattooed man demands attention.
More importantly though than the individual works contributed to this exhibition by the members is that every one of this co-operative of artists plays an invaluable part in making this little gallery the sparkling gem on the High Street of a small Welsh seaside town that it has become. And still it is less than a year since Oriel Scala first opened its doors to the public. However even more laudable is the fact that these artists are looking beyond achieving personal and group success by fostering and encouraging new talent and working with the local art colleges in offering this innovative opportunity to new graduate artists and help them to take their first steps as professional artists.
Susie Liddle
