June 30 to September 26, 2014
An exhibition of selected artworks from the University’s art museum collection which focuses on the visual culture of modern and contemporary South Wales.
This exhibition returns to the themes of the university centenary display In Our Own Image? which was held in the art gallery last winter (November 2013 - March 2014). Once again, it draws upon the university's art museum collection and its images of modern and contemporary south Wales. The main, focus here is a sense of real and imagined identity and place and these qualities are presented for consideration under the same three headings: (a) society; (b) place; (c) memory and imagination.
Levi Ladd (1877-1952) Miners outside Empire Theatre, Tonypandy (1910)
William Goscombe John (1860-1952) John Blandy Jenkins, Chairman, Glamorgan County Council, Cardiff, 1895-1915 (1910) marble
Ceri Richards (1903-71) Roller at the 'Bosh' with Doubler and Furnaceman (1942) pen and wash and charcoal on paper
Contrasting aspects of 1910 are captured: the black and white 'Tonypandy Riots' photographs of Levi Ladd (1877-1952) and the white marble bust by William Goscombe John (1860-1952) of John Blandy Jenkins, Chairman of Glamorgan County Council. A third of a century later come two works on paper, one of Gowerton tinplate workers (1942) by Ceri Richards (1903-71) and another titled Head of a Miner (1945) by the refugee artist Josef Herman (1911-2000) Contemporary society is imaged in a still Chav at First Sight: Ambulance (2010) from a performance piece by Thomas Goddard (b 1980) and Tiffany Oben (b 1969), shown above.
Horace Moulton (d 1939) Morning Flood on the Usk (c. 1933) oil on canvas
Ernest Zobole (1927-99) Yellow Landscape (c. 1977) oil on canvas
Bert Isaac (1923-2006) Man-made Mountains (2002) acrylic on paper
The paintings of place range from the more representational Morning Flood on the Usk (c.1933) by Horace Moulton (d 1939) and Penygraig (1953) by Gwyn Evans (b 1931), painted at the time of the coronation, to the more abstract Yellow Landscape (c.1977) by Ernest Zobole (1927-99) and Manmade Mountains (2002) by Bert Isaac (1923-2006).
Unknown artist World War One Memorial (c. 1919) oak and gold leaf
Roberta Graham Pale Battalions (2000) polaroid photograph with handmade leather frame
Judith Beecher (b 1950) Splott Girl (2001) oil on board
This begins with the recently restored oak and gold leaf World War One Memorial (c.1919) by an unknown artist. The fallen from the Great War are recreated in a contemporary piece Pale Battalions (2000) by Roberta Graham. Miners from the interwar period are recalled in a 1984 painting by Nicholas Evans (1907-2004) and the transient world of orchestral music and the sea's edge are allusively painted by Michael Freeman (b 1936) in his Grand Sand Drawing series (2002). Contemporary south Wales is imaged in the colour photographs Gynor Place and Station Terrace (both 2000) by Paul Cabuts (b 1956) and by Judith Beecher (b 1950) in the painting, Splott Girl (2001).
A related publication is available by Ceri Thomas, In Our Own Image? A Century of Imaging of and in South Wales: 1910-2013 (University of South Wales 2014), illustrated, 68 pages, price £7.50.