Anna Lewis

Cathexis

28 April – 16 June 2007

Private View 7pm Saturday 28 April 2007

which will be opened by Philip Hughes, Director of Ruthin Craft Centre

‘Cathexis’ ‘an attachment or transfer of emotional energy and significance onto and into an object, idea or person.

Mission Gallery has set a new and challenging initiative that offers artists and craft makers the opportunity to create a site specific installation in the gallery’s unique exhibition space.  The Swansea based artist Anna Lewis, known as a jeweller/designer maker, is the first to take up this challenge and work outside her usual practice on a large scale installation.

Memory, memorial, superstitions, amulets and shrines are interconnecting themes which inspire and inform Anna’s work and she is constantly striving to discover the symbolic significance of objects in peoples lives, whether they are personal, religious, cultural or universal.  Stemming from a fascination with recording her own personal history, she is interested in the relationship people have with certain objects and how they influence behaviour and belief through their material meanings.

Anna has chosen to interpret these influences both symbolically and visually in her work.  Using themes and imagery from her own collection of family heirlooms, she combines materials like feathers, leather, wood and silver which are printed with delicate traces of memory.

Since graduating from Middlesex University in 2000 Anna Lewis has become well known for her delicate printed feather creations. Her work has been exhibited at some of the best contemporary craft galleries throughout the UK and she has been an exhibitor at Chelsea Crafts Fair.  She has also exhibited internationally including France, USA, Kuwait, Germany, Japan, Milan and Australia.  In the past her jewellery has been featured in several magazines including Elle Decoration, Living Etc. Wedding & Home, You, Embroidery, Selvedge, and Crafts magazine. More information and images of Anna¹s work can be seen on her website www.annalewisjewellery.co.uk

Catalyst

A Ruthin Craft Centre Exhibition

3 March - 14 April

Catalyst explores the pivotal role that the Craft Setting Up Grant has played in the development of the Applied Art in Wales by reflecting on eight individual makers’ profiles – chosen from a comprehensive overview of three decades in order to reflect the diversity, longevity and generational span of the scheme.The exhibition examines the careers and lifestyle of these eight makers and focuses on the professional, economic and social impact of the Setting Up Grant. It includes work by Cefyn Burgess, David Colwell. Claire Curneen, Lowri Davies, Simon Hulbert, Claudia Lis, John Neilson and Laura Thomas.

Images:

Claire Curneen (top)

Claudia Lis (bottom)

Jigsaw

Second Year BA Surface Pattern Design

Swansea Institute

3 February - 17 February 2007

An exhibition of work by Second Year BA Surface Pattern Design students at Swansea Institute of Higher Education, produced specially for Mission Gallery using exciting and innovative surfaces and structures which consider colour, texture, image and concept.

image: 'Subtle Bodies' by Catherine Chapman

Paul Wenham-Clarke

When Lives Collide

6 - 27 January 2007    

Private View Tuesday 9 January 6.30 - 9.30pm

When Lives Collide' is a collection of photographic images that show the horror of car crashes and the effect they have upon real peoples lives. The exhibition is an attempt to cut through the statictics and to take a personal and emotional at this issue. These people may be terribly injured and/or bereaved, either way their lives are devasted.

The exhibition also contains some shocking and controversial images of crash scenes. These images are not real but have been created using actors and make-up. This has been done in an attempt to make the public realise how terrible a crash scene really would be. However the majority of the work is portraits of the bereaved and seriously injured, including in their own words an account of the events and their emotions.

This controversial exhibition had over 8000 visitors whilst on show at the Oxo Gallery on Londons South Bank.

Robert Conybear

Inner Portraits
15 October - 31 December 2006
Mission Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of new work by the Swansea based artist Robert Conybear. The comedian, writer and producer Paul Merton is sponsoring Robert to produce new artwork and enabling studio/work time for this exciting one man show.

Robert’s new work ‘Inner Portraits’ are life size figurative sculptural forms, free standing and wall mounted, made from welded stainless steel, copper and concrete. Described by the artist as "imaginative, laconic and occasionally comic", some of themes explored by Robert are anthroplogical, scientific and medical issues based around an 'intelligent bomb family' and those individuals 'inner portraits' and life interests.

www.robconybear.co.uk

Owen Griffiths
Festival

16 September - 7 October 2006
Owen Griffiths was Mission Gallery's Artist in Residence in 2005. Since finishing the residency and co-producing a cookbook, Owen has been creating drawing works, photography and three dimensional forms for the exhibition Festival, which will provide an opportunity to explore alternative energies, creativity whilst initiating cooking and live action works.

Celebrating the possibilty of the existence of thousands of un-witnessed artworks that often take place not in the presence of an artist (every human being) but in nature and in life, he is inspired to create works that derive from organic processes, ideas of origin, current affairs. Owen explores how art, imagination and consciousness can be a medium with which to make a change in the world. The thme of the works calls for a reconnection between being and planet by using natural material and looking at parallel processes, enabling a space to bring new meanings to objects.

"Through exploration of alternative creative investigations and actions, through 'thought drawings', installations and growing vegetables, I search for symbols of hope, postive energy and beauty. I grow vegetables as a postive creative action. Growing and watering my allotment is a powerful source of creative energy and inspiration for my working process"

Kieran Brown
Monger
10 June - 22 July 2006
Monger is a site specific installation by Bristol based artist Kieran Brown. Using aspects of his personal life as metaphors in his work, he combines them with the coincidences, mistakes and failures of his production methods which direct a large part of his practice, making sculpture, installation and moving image.

Brown equips himself with an array of materials and ides; foam, wax, resin, combined with octopus legs, horse legs and severed artist heads; this is what we might expect as he sets out on a maing journey. The work is a combination of the familiar and the bizarre fantasy that is created in the artist world.

John Pym
Penumbra
1 April - 27 May 2006
Drawing from factual, anecdotal and apocryphal stories which surround the mission, John Pym will construct a site specific temporary installation. Both the architecture and the buildings religious past will form a pivotal role within the work. In doing so, it will actively involve the onlooker. This has particular relevance to those who believe they are already familiar with the gallery. Upon entering the installation, they will be forced to reappraise their assumptions about the building and themselves.

Paul Jeff
Life is Perfect
7pm Wednesday 8 March
PAUL+A (aka Paul Jeff) will be posing questions on relativity, singularity and representation in regard to the recent suite of 'murder' photographs - 'Life is Perfect', - the work will be shown in projected form, in entirety, during the evening.

Adam Goodge
Cliff Richard v Tom Jones
Private View 7 pm Friday 10 March - on until 12 March
A lyrical face-off between the ‘Peter Pan of Pop’ Cliff Richard and ‘Welsh Sex Bomb’ Tom Jones.

Gallery Talk 12 o’clock Saturday 11 March 2006
Meet the men behind the masks, a discussion between Cliff, Tom, Adam and Another

‘TITLED’
Private View 7 pm Monday 6 March – on until 10 March
Experimental film work by staff and students from the Faculty of Art & Design at Swansea Institute of Higher Education

Daniel Rees
Variable peace (up to 21)
Private View 7 pm Friday 3 March – on until 5 March
A new video work by Daniel Rees (a past SIHE Foundation Student and recent graduate of Camberwell School of Art) whose first one man show will be at Mission Gallery in 2007.

Fascination Bound
Private View 7 pm Monday 27 February – on until 3 March
Students from the Foundation Course in Art & Design at Swansea Institute of Higher Education present film and performance work.

Paul Emmanuel
the end
Private View 7 pm Friday 24 February – on until 26 February
Using street drop-in centre slogans, film sequences, soundtrack and location shoot. the end replaces movie title and end credits in a simulation of grand narrative. With signs of hunting and community care provision and through the re-emphasis of star billing, song listings, technical crew credits and copyright logos, the end presents the mediated spectacle of movies as DIY rehab and end credit soundtrack memorial. the end is a dual screen projection of the opening and end credits of two different movies simultaneously

Paul Emmanuel is a graduate of Goldsmiths and has shown widely in the U.K. and internationally. Most recently MOCA Los Angeles. SLY Art Taipei. Ffotogallery Cardiff and will be working in China this spring with support from Wales Arts International. He lives and works in the Brecon Beacons.

Artists Rolls
18 – 24 February 2006
Private View 7pm Friday 17 February 2006

Pat Briggs Paul Emmanuel Neale Howells Roger Moss Marc Rees
Martin Berczelly Katherine Murphy Sian Rees Tim Stokes Fern Thomas

This exciting project, part of the celebratory Swansea Shines/Tanio Tawe event, refers back to the origins of cinema, to the ‘pure cinema’ developments of the Futurists and Dadaists and specifically to the work of Survage, Eggeling, Ruttman, through to McLaren and Brakhage. A group of artists were invited to create moving ‘paintings’/ ‘artists rolls’ (or circular paintings) directly onto 35mm celluloid film stock. The theme of Swansea Shines/Tanio Tawe is ’Positive not negative light’ and the successful artists were encouraged to explore this basic idea/premise. The commissioned artists are a mixture of established and emerging artists who live and work in the Swansea area.

Artists Rolls is funded by the Millennium Commission through Arts About Swansea

Final Fantasy
13 January - 12 February 2006
Curated by Kwanyi Pan

John Tiney
Philip Jonlin Lee
Hayashi Haruhi
Kevin Smith and Pam Richardson
Dar-kuen Wu
Shih-juen Cheng
Yi-Li Yeh
Hung tung-lu

Mission Gallery is pleased to present Final Fantasy curated by Kwanyi Pan, this screening shows the unique ways in which contemporary visual artists present animation as a medium and subject in their artistic practice. We have grown up with an animation culture which is not only for children but also for adults, including contemporary artists. For instance, today Japanese contemporary art is influenced directly by animation. Takashi Murakami’s ‘Hiropon’, is perhaps the most well known example of the crossover between anime and contemporary art. This constructed world consequently destroys the borders between high and low culture. The blending of diverse influences enlarges and enriches the vision in animation and our looking at real life.

Final Fantasy is the work of nine artists based in London, Tokyo and Taipei; it implicates visual experience informed by new technologies, where "reality" and "fantasy" are mixed. Humour, imagination, reality, and fantasy is the animation world they explore, exercising a diverse media that includes video, graphic form and animation. They have created a fantasy world that enriches our fantasy world.

The Christmas Show
19 November – 7 January 2006
Mission Gallery's annual Christmas show which showcases the galley's new display of special objects and unique gifts for Christmas. On show in the gallery’s craft space will be a wide selection of jewellery, glass, ceramics, bags, scarves, and design led gifts by artists, designers and makers.

Julia Griffiths Jones
Stories in the Making
12 November – 7 January 2006
Julia Griffiths Jones is an intuitive storyteller. She uses a narrative device very much of her own creation: the ‘wire poem’. Her work has been described as ‘embroideries in the air’; though the direction taken in her recent work has moved from the literal use of textile techniques in metal, to the creation of sophisticated visual references that capture in wire the character, fluidity and freedom that cloth as a medium provides.
Julia continues to live and work in West Wales, a locus and space where her creative practice is strongly rooted. She has exhibited widely in Britain and abroad, completing a broad profile of education projects and significant commissions.

A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition

Hamish Gane
Apron
17 September – 30 October 2005
The work of Swansea based artist Hamish Gane considers broad themes surrounding photography, memory and melancholia, most often through depiction of his immediate environment and family. In this series, Gane creates a conceptual space within which to work by repeatedly photographing the same physical space from a fixed camera position. The staged reality of the resulting images then further creates a metaphysical space between fact and fiction, security and vulnerability, reality and myth.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Lynn Walters
Craft Focus
22 July – 25 September 2005
Lynn Walters is known for her wire and metal work inspired by memories, people and places from her childhood - valley houses, washing lines and recently beach scenes, depicted in a witty and energetic way. A new body of work recently developed will be launched especially for this Craft Focus showcase portraying the artist’s exploration into new themes and materials.

Ioan Humphreys
Out the Other Side
2 July - 20 August 2005
The work of Swansea based painter Ioan Humphreys, displays great confidence with the nature of painting, putting a strong emphasis on colour and form. He has allowed himself the freedom to take his work into what is currently a distinct sphere; an unashamedly personal exploration and celebration of painting.
His work readdresses notions of concept from a fresh and personal starting point, one not burdened by current expectation but free to explore the issues of paint. Humphreys uses landscape as a means of articulating, and balancing composition around a focal point, creating images that present a refreshing and vibrant relationship between figuration and abstraction.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Hands across the Border
Alison Morton, Dail Behennah, Gordon Baldwin, Jim Partridge, Maxine Bristow Pamela Rawnsley, Simon Carroll, Walter Keeler and Rupert Spira
30 April – 18 June 2005
The nine artists in this exhibition all live within 20 miles on either side of the Wales/England border, and represent a strong and coherent set of values in making. All are committed to the use of natural, deeply resonate materials, such as red clay, silver, willow, oak and linen. This showcase illustrates a rich synergy across the group, in terms of approach, philosophy, making process, inspirational sources and much more.

A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition

Sian Bonnell
From an Elsewhere Unknown
22 January – 12 March 2005
This exhibition brings together works made over the last few years by British artist Sian Bonnell. Taking domesticity as her starting point, Bonnell places everyday, household items in rural contexts and photographs them within the landscape. Appearing at first quirky, whimsical and humorous, the images also allude to the domestic role of women in society and environmental abuse.

A Ffotogallery Touring Exhibition

Claire Curneen
succour
13 November – 15 January 2004
Claire Curneen, winner of the Gold Medal for Craft at the Royal National Eisteddfod in 2001, is based at Fireworks Studios in Cardiff. Her work has received a number of international awards and plaudits and is regularly profiled in the artistic and popular press. Succour is a milestone in Claire’s continuing investigation into three-dimensional figurative work that combines the everyday and ordinary with the religious, spiritual and the magical. During this exhibition at Mission Gallery, Manchester City Gallery bought a piece of Claire’s work for their collection.

A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition

Clare Twomey
Heirloom
11 September – 30 October 2004
London based artist Clare Twomey works with ceramic materials, mainly porcelain. Using the history of this craft to make large scale sculptural works, many of her installations interact with a particular environment. The work is site specific to the gallery and aims to work with the local community’s memories and reactions to the objects that may be known to them. She has established a national and international reputation - past exhibitions have included Still, Applied Arts Agency, London 2002, Approaching Content, Crafts Council, London 2003 and A Brief History of Clay, Tate Liverpool 2004.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Of Sea and Stars
Malcolm Bennett, David Gould, Rozanne Hawksley,
Ioan Humphreys, Ann Shaw, Lynn Walters
10 July - 29 August 2004
Featuring six artists working in different media whose work explores themes of the sea and maritime history. Situated in the heart of Swansea’s Maritime Quarter Mission Gallery’s history and location is embraced by the sea and throughout history, the sea has been a source of fascination and inspiration for artists.
The sea has a different meaning to us all, of beauty and danger, of childhood holidays, myths and stories or a place of work. This exhibition ‘of Sea and Stars’ brings together six contemporary Welsh or Wales based artists working in a variety of different media. The works have been selected because their association with the sea reflecting the nautical history of Swansea and Mission Gallery, a former seaman’s chapel.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Unlimited Edition
Film & Video Umbrella touring exhibition
22 May – 27 June 2004
Mission Gallery will be the only Welsh venue to screen Unlimited Edition. Film and Video Umbrella are a London based organisation working at the forefront of artist’s film and video practice, initiating, developing and staging artist’s work in film, video and digital media. This compilation of fourteen of their most popular and successful videos commissioned in the last decade, will profile the variety and scope of projects they have undertaken. The exhibition includes work by internationally renowned artists such as Isaac Julien, John Wood and Paul Harrison.

Anna Noel
Craft Focus
15 May – 4 July 2004
Swansea based ceramist and former student of the Royal College of Art, Anna Noel makes expressive ceramic sculptures of animals, her Riders on Horseback are particularly significant, taking inspiration from Celtic myths and legends and her love of animals.

Antony Hall
Fluid
3 April – 15 May 2004
The parallels between the artist’s studio and the scientist laboratory have led Manchester based artist Antony Hall to define his work as a series of ongoing experiments and projects. The philosophical motivations behind the activities of scientists, which demands such attention to the minuscule, and a need for creative thought in the solution of problems, corresponds to the predicament of the artist. Hall intends to engage the viewer with ideas about our continual interactive and ecological relationship with the micro cosmos through the amplification and reassessment of what is often perceived as mundane phenomena. There will be school workshops led by the artist to accompany this exhibition. Antony Hall studied BA (Hons) Fine Art at UWIC and MA in Art as Environment at Manchester Metropolitan University. Previous exhibitions have included; g39, Cardiff 2001, Station, Bristol 2001, Wales Art International, Milan Italy, 2001, Spacex, Exeter, R-type, Bloc Space, Sheffield 2003,

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Martina Mullaney
Turn In
17 January - 28 February 2004
Turn In was a powerful and moving photographic exhibition by Martina Mullaney, the work addresses issues of isolation and loneliness among the homeless community. As part of Mission Gallery’s outreach programme the gallery organised an ambitious city wide photography project which took place during the three weeks running up to Christmas. Martina Mullaney worked in the city with the homeless, residents of homeless hostels and those who have experienced homelessness in a series of photographic workshops which gave them the opportunity to make their own work, those images were included in the exhibition.
A Ffotogallery Touring Exhibition

Christine Jones
New Ceramics
16 November 2003 - 10 January 2004
New work by Swansea based ceramicist Christine Jones. Winner of the Gold Medal for Craft at the National Eisteddfod in 2000, Christine Jones’ pieces are elegant and minimal hand-built forms that poise precariously on slender bases. The vessels convey clarity and quietness, yet still contain the energy of making.

A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition.

Caroline Broadhead
Away
13 September - 1 November 2003
Caroline Broadhead is one of Britain’s leading contemporary artists and this exhibition will be her first solo show in Wales. Using the potential of the presence of garments to indicate private territory, this new work will explore the ideas of boundaries, intimacy and separateness.
An internationally acclaimed artist for the past twenty five years, Caroline Broadhead has seen her work successfully bridges the gap between fine and applied art. Although originally trained in jewellery design, Broadhead is now categorised as a textile artist. She is best known for her use of garments, often creating fragile installations that incorporate ephemeral dress structures; the garments and their shadows become the delicate borderline between the self and the rest of the world, as well as signifiers of bodily presence/absence.
She was awarded the Jerwood Prize for Applied Art: Textiles in 1997 and has work in public collections worldwide. She currently lives and works in North London.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Modus Operandi - five early career ceramists based in Wales
Daniel Allen, Duncan Ayscough, Lowri Davies, Ingrid Murphy and Eileen Newell
12 July - 30 August 2003
An exploratory profile of work by five makers each of whom has graduated in the last ten years and are in their formative years of studio practice.
A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition

Warren Williams
My Family and Other Animals
24 May – 5 July 2003
This exhibition by Neath based artist Warren Williams will be his first one-man show since graduating from Swansea in 1999. His work is heavily influenced by the brilliant draughtsmanship of old masters while poignantly addressing social issues surrounding identity, class and sexuality.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Sarah Noel
Craft Focus
3 May – 28 June 2003
The work of Swansea based ceramicist Sarah Noel is largely two dimensional and pictorial in character, combining influences as diverse as medieval art, theatre, costume and the sea.

Pat Briggs
Not a Lot
6 April – 17 May 2003
Swansea based artist Pat Briggs trained in sculpture at the Royal College of Art before teaching at Swansea College of Art (now SIHE), in the 1960’s. Her many years of teaching has influenced nearly thirty years of art students who began their training in Swansea.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Peter Bobby
Reception
8 February – 29 March 2003
Peter Bobby’s work is realised in exquisitely composed large format colour photographs. They take as its central subject, the interior spaces of the corporate world, which are designed to sell an image of affluence and respectability but are largely characterised by a sense of desolateness and clinical austerity. Bobby accentuates this sense of alienation by choosing to document the space immediately after the building contractors have left but prior to any human occupation. These fabricated architectural settings which exude artifice, raise interesting questions around notions of fantasy, illusion and visual seduction. The questioning of these environments through the manner in which they are presented as photographic icons, talks eloquently about the trappings of corporate power, but also issues of class and patterns of social behaviour,

A Ffotogallery Touring Exhibition

Sandie Macrae
Cloud
7 September – 27 October 2002
In a room filled with water/vapour/mist/cloud/fog/breath, perceptions melt and shift. Voices can be heard talking about their experiences of these phenomena. Some of these voices refer to sky and cloud and some to fog or mist, but all make reference to their existence in distance and space in a physical or emotional way.
Bristol based artist Sandie Macrae first exhibited a similar site specific work at Bristol Airport and the recorded voices within the installation mingled with the actual voices of the passengers and staff about to depart. The result was that the often lyrical personal experiences of a fragile and ephemeral other world were than linked by the more impersonal operational tones from the flight control tower, For a moment this interaction and its universal implications can be questioned.
Since completing her MA in Fine Art at UWIC in 1991, Sandie Macrae has exhibited throughout the UK including Spacex Gallery in Exeter, Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth and the Arnolfini in Bristol.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Alexandra Baraitser
New Paintings
7 July – 17 August 2002
Mission Gallery has recently been forging links with galleries outside of Wales with the aim of collaborating or exchanging exhibitions, at present we are working closely with Hirschl Contemporary Art, London.
Cambridge based artist Alexandra Baraitser looks at the balance of structure and form in design classics and in particular throne-like armchairs. All chairs are placed formally and centrally within the picture plane so that the relationship between the object and its given environment is at the forefront of the work. Much of the source material is taken from photography and painting but it is photography that inspires the parallel lines of light that dominate the work. Additionally painting is a means for expressing something about human personalities and the human condition. Recent images are chosen from an eclectic range of modern furniture bringing together designers such as Le Courbusier and Conran and once isolated in their own monochrome grounds they take on new and re-packaged identities. Forms are often over life size and spring out from the surface of the canvas and so play with the illusion of three- dimensional space.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Diaspora Cymreig
Makers of Welsh origin working outside Wales
18 May – 29 June 2002
Diaspora: ‘to disperse, to sow, to scatter’
(from the Greek to describe dispersal of peoples)
Diaspora Cymreig is an exhibition of innovative Welsh makers working outside Wales and intends to highlight the rich contribution that makers and designers form Wales have made to the wider visual culture of the UK.
Artists and craftspeople of all societies since time immemorial have travelled and exposed themselves to new sights, influences and ideas, which can be adapted and incorporated in their work. Or which alternatively may simply inspire a new approach to working. This travel and movement has resulted in many settling far beyond the borders of their homelands.

A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition

Philip Nicol
About Time
1 April – 11 May 2002
Winner of the Gold Medal in Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod in 2001, Cardiff based artist Philip Nicol’s paintings aim to delight, disquiet and astound. His prime concern lies in a condition of light and the tension of passing time. The paintings are ‘fixed’ in a perpetual state of suspension. Time is stretched, natural light dies and electric light is switched on. All makes for a sense of unease and anxiety. A fine line is drawn between the moment and the monument. His paintings arise from the world which he knows. Side streets seen, urban ‘pockets’ glimpsed, places that exist ‘out of hours’. As Nicol himself states; “Experience itself is a construct and the remaking of experience into a painting is certainly so. I bring a lot of ghosts to bear on both. Film noir, crime fiction and, of course many other painters”. Philip Nicol intends his paintings to reverberate and resound into other people’s experience, reminding them of what they know and have not yet seen.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Anna Lewis
Craft Focus
26 January – 17 March 2002
Inspired by a family photograph and the strong bonds we feel to our personal possessions, the work of Swansea based artist Anna Lewis evokes memory by expressing delicate, ghostlike and ephemeral qualities. By using the feather as a symbolic material Anna has created some emotional body pieces which wrap around and embrace the neck and shoulders like a security blanket.
Before graduating from Middlesex University in June 2000, Anna worked with milliner Dai Rees on several occasions as well as assisting designers Natasha Kerr and Helen Carnac, before returning to Swansea to set up her own business. Anna’s work also features in Ruthin Craft Centre’s ‘Destination Unknown’, a platform for new designers to show their work as well as the arts Council of Wales Collectorplan re-launch celebrations in the National Botantic Gardens in November 2000.

Lucy Casson
19 January – 3 March 2002
Lucy Casson makes figurative sculpture in tin, wire, felt (sculptural) and metals, using soldering and riveting techniques. Pieces have titles like; ‘Fleeing the City’, ‘Looking through a Cheese Grater’. ‘Expedition’ and ‘Dressing Up’. They explore concerns about environmental issues and recycling with intelligence and wit.

A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition

Karen Ingham
Death’s Witness
8 September – 14 October 2001
Death’s Witness is Swansea based photographer Karen Ingham’s latest series of lens based work and is a critical re-examination of the relationship between death, icons, the body and photography. It is anchored by a methodology bringing together theory and practice which reflects the current reappraisal of representations of the body and of the emerging awareness of the symbiotic relationship between art and science.

A Ffotogallery Touring Exhibition

Susan Cutts
a dress a dress
14 July – 2 September 2001
Since graduating from the London College of Furniture. Sussex based artist Susan Cutts has worked with her own handmade paper, exploring the relevance of ‘dress’ to the wearer. By using this image of empty clothing, the interpretation can be on a personal level or as an indication of a larger historical context.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Virginia Graham
Craft Focus
30 June – 2 September 2001
Cardiff based ceramicist Virginia Graham makes teapots and tea services using a combination of slip casting and hand building techniques. These forms are created with duplicated components which have been cast directly from original factory produced teapots and tableware. Their surfaces make reference to the utilitarian ceramics that have been produced by the British ceramics industry for many centuries. In addition to using earthenware glazes in a traditional manner, she uses a computer to create designs that are screen printed onto the clay. Virginia is keen to produce objects that marry industrial processes with hand made ceramic tradition, purely for decorative purposes.

Craig Wood
Folk
3 June – 8 July 2001
Over the course of ten years Carmarthen based artist Craig Wood’s practice has been predominantly site specific. Early work took the form of large scale installations built in conformity with particular architecture and archaeological drawings of ordinary disposable objects. This interest in archiving the ordinary has continued through a variety of techniques today. His approach however has shifted from connecting work to the physical architecture to that of works inspired by the history, usage and ambience of a given situation Stylistically each work is radically different to its predecessor, their meanings becoming readable only within the context which inspired them.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Savage
N.N.52
1 April – 20 May 2001
Bristol based artist Savage creates site generated installations and sculpture based on the notion of history and preservation. Since receiving an MA in Visual Arts from Goldsmiths in 1997, he has exhibited widely including Spacex Gallery in Exeter, the South Bank Centre in London, Station in Bristol and most recently at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Audrey Walker
20 January – 11 March 2001
Pembrokeshire based artist Audrey Walker’s latest collection of textile works feature portraits of the human head, revealing a rich yet subtle exploration of the human gaze and encounter. Audrey Walker was awarded the MBE for her services to textiles in 1993 and in spite of her ling and prestigious career, this will be her first one person show.

A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition

Paul Emmanuel
New Painting
2 September – 29 October 2000
Paul Emmanuel is a Swansea based artist and a graduate of Goldsmiths College in London. His work explores the representation of the body in art and embraces all the implications of the body imprint. Swansea will have the chance to view this body of new work before the opening of his second one man show at Laurent Delaye Gallery in December.

A Mission Gallery originated Exhibition

David Hastie
the secluded stage
2 July – 27 August 2000
The work of Swansea based artist David Hastie is primarily sculptural installations. He uses large structural elements, such as discarded railway sleepers or doors and places them alongside more ‘human’ element which are sourced from his childhood and are of a more playful nature. His pieces are inspired both toys and at he imaginary world of play, as well as the more pragmatic experiences of adulthood. This polarity allows a relationship that explores the memories and fantasies that remain from childhood, but lays bare a more foreboding actuality of the adult experience.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Peter Finnemore
Gwendraeth House
28 April – 25 June 2000
Peter Finnemore, a photographic artist from West Wales sees his work revolving around visual explorations on the theme of identity: Welsh identity, its landscape, it’s historical, cultural, spiritual and psychological nuances. Gwendraeth House is autobiographical and revolves around Finnemore’s family history and the effect that his house has had on him, culturally and psychologically. The work provides a fascinating and authentic insight into Finnemore’s first major exhibition in Wales and the UK.

Jane Adam
New Work
15 January – 12 March 2000
An important exhibition of new work by Jane Adam, developed from her research fellowship at the University of Central England. Anodised aluminium is a material that still has many secrets to offer and Jane Adam’s developments push its use forward, sharing the excitement of the material.

A Ruthin Craft Centre Touring Exhibition

Stuart Brisley
ydoolb yadnus
17 April 1999
The first showing outside London of a new performance by the internationally renowned performance artist, Stuart Brisley. Part of Mission Gallery’s 10 day Performance Festival, which also featured Larry Lynch and Kira O’Reilly.

Gillian Wearing
19 June- 1 August 1999
Gillian Wearing uses video and photography to produce honest observations of contemporary life resulting in work of a disturbing and confessional nature. On show at Mission Gallery will be the Turner Prize winning piece, Sixty Minute Silence and Confess all on video.

Sixty Minute Silence
The participants were dressed in police uniforms and asked to stay absolutely still for one hour during which they became increasingly uncomfortable, the video camera placing those who are normally perceived as having control over us in a controlled situation.

Confess all on video
A thirty minute video tape in which people who responded to an advert placed by Wearing in the personal columns, confess their innermost secrets while disguised in a variety of wigs and masks.

Green Waters
Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ian Stephen, Graham Rich
7 March – 11 April 1999
The exhibition features the work of three British artists for whom the boat is a key image. In their work these makers celebrate the shape, form, names, traditions and work-a-day life of boats form around the coasts of British Isles.
Each artist engages in his own way, with folk and community traditions, with sea lore, the local symbolic and mythological meanings of the boat and its voyages. However, and this is crucial to the exhibitionís purpose ñ they are all inspired by artistic traditions, by the image of the boat as it has appeared in Modern Art.

Hideo Furuta
Position and Appearance
28 September – 29 October 1997
An installation of hand carved granite forms by Japanese sculptor Hideo Furuta. Hideo is a man of profound contrasts with his Oriental heritage and Western education. The dominant influences on his work are pure mathematics, philosophy and Zen Buddhism.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Rozanne Hawksley
“…. A Treaty will be signed sometime today….”
17 May -22 June 1997
Rozanne Hawksley, a Pembrokeshire based artist deals with the themes of mis-use of power and its effect upon the individual. This installation is an attempt to focus on the meaningless of so many “agreements” and the need for co-existence whilst there is still time.

A Mission Gallery originated show.

Catherine Yass
Steel
5 April – 8 May 1997
Catherine Yass, one of the 26 younger generation artists who took part in the recent British Art Show 4, was commissioned by Ffotogallery to produce a new body of work based on her experiences at Port Talbot Steel Works. Catherine Yass works in the medium of photographic light box transparencies and has developed and perfected a unique photographic technique which transforms highlights into seductive blue hues while leaving all other colours untainted. Her use of colour and projected light beautifully articulates the industrial environment saturated by intense heat and light.

A Ffotogallery Touring Exhibition