INTERFACE
Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
REVIEW
Wales Drawing Biennale
Wrexham Arts Centre, Wrexham 14 September – 26 October
Reviewed by: Richard Noyce
This third biennale celebrating the possibilities of drawing in Wales contains 130 works selected by Len Massey, Head of Drawing at the Royal College of Art, from an open submission of over 450.
Perhaps inevitably, many of the selected works relate to the landscape and weather of Wales. The rocks and skies that have inspired so many writers and musicians, and so many visual artists of the past, remain central to the creative expression of human experience. A notable example is seen in two major drawings of quarries by Bert Isaac, monumental hewn rock face and tumbledown buildings recording the struggle between man and nature, with a sombre sense of human failure. Other examples include Ffenestri by Ivor Davies – a gnomic gestural work in egg and soil that reveals in its detail hints of an elemental landscape; and a masterly drawing, Untitled/waterfall by Harry Jepson, delineating the meeting of water, light and rock.
Other uses of drawing are seen throughout the exhibition: Lyn Marsden-Watkins reinterprets Vermeer in a fractured street scene of Delft; Mary Lloyd-Jones explores the density of black in Barclodiad y Gawres, with signs and symbols revealed and concealed; Sarah Margaret Mail's Iron bridge recreates the energy of the early Industrial Revolution in a masterly and energetic drawing using dynamic trails of acrylic, and Frank Watkins uses folded and twisted pieces of paper arranged in a grid within a deep frame to mobilise the power of light and shadow as a drawing tool.
The range of mediums and techniques used here, as well as the strength and variety of imaginative and recording skills shown by a very wide range of artists, demonstrates beyond doubt that drawing is alive and well in Wales and full of exciting potential for the future.
Writer detail:
RICHARD NOYCE
is a writer and artist based in mid Wales.
richard.noyce@virgin.net |
www.artwriter.co.uk
Venue detail:
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