A little art before we leave
I have blogged about the art at the Twr y Felin hotel previously. The whole hotel is a gallery of contemporary art and it’s great to have time to take a closer look and discover some pieces I’d not noticed before.
The first thing I noticed when we stepped inside our room was the familiar look of the artworks hanging there.
Uncannily, I had packed clothes of a similar palette of colours for our trip, too. But I needed to check the details to see if my hunch was correct, so I took a look in the handy catalogue, there on the coffee table.
I was wrong. I had thought that these paintings were similar to those in the room we had on our last visit and that, perhaps they were by the same artist, Lynda Marwood. Not so, however. These works are by Jane McCann and though they are similar in style, they’re actually quite different from each other.
Looking in the catalogue, however, I noted three small and one large work listed as hanging in Room 176, yet I could find just two small paintings, there above the bed.
As we’d stepped into the room, I’d thought it was rather a strange placement above the bedhead. It looks like there were originally three small square paintings but one is now missing. I wonder what happened there?!
A browse through the catalogue highlighted one or two other items I’d not noticed previously.
Lovely ceramics by Adam Buick, which my Hero had notiiced on our arrival and commented upon.
Quite how we’d missed this table in the hotel reception, I have no idea…except that it’s opposite the desk, so as we’d checked in/out or chatted with the staff on duty, they would have been behind us. I made a mental note to be more observant in the future!
I ate breakfast alone whilst my Hero went off to get the tyre repaired first thing, so I had time to look around the restaurant and spot a few other “new-to-me” pieces. I didnt recall these works by Bambi, whose distinctive style is reminiscent of other artists working in black and white with a spot of red, don’t you think?
Though this one caught my eye, I can’t say it appealed to me
as much as this one of a series of typewriter themed images in the corridor, by WRDSMTH, unsurprisingly one of his most popular works.
As I perused the art, I heard familiar footsteps; the return of my Hero, car tyre repaired and asking “Well, are you ready to go?” (I was)
With plenty of time to spare before our 0130 ferry departure, we stepped over the road from Twr y Felin to take a look in the National Park Visitor Centre, where there’s also an art gallery.
We always have time for more art, especially when the day stretches ahead of us like it did today. In the small gallery we found the work of local artists who had captured a real sense of place in the works on show here.
I thought this one was especially apt this morning, as we listened to news of the incoming storm and kept everything crossed that our ferry would leave tonight as planned. The caption was taken from the daily shipping forecast, written in familiar terms heard regularly on the BBC.
Oooer. We hoped the word “improving” would feature sometime soon!
The main show at the Oriel Gallery today was by Helen Chadwick, entitled Body and Landscape. Though her name was familiar, I couldn’t bring her work to mind. Reading that she had been tutor and mentor to such successful British artists as Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, I realised that she was - or rather had been - one of our most highly respected recent artists. Sadly, she had died suddenly, aged 42, leaving behind a limited number of works as a result. What was here is possibly the most treasured.
These two large “Viral Landscapes” were hung facing one another on opposite sides of the gallery with a bench placed in the middle for viewers to take them both in. They’re huge and powerful images and having just come from the smaller gallery containing all the coastal seascapes, that was where these two took me.
But although the landscape content of the works are taken from a similar location, the overall title of the show (Body and Landscape) offers a clue to other aspects in her work, explained in the nearby notes.
The main room was filled with possibly the work most usually associated with the artist, entitled Piss Flowers.
Sadly, with the exception of a member of the gallery staff seated reading a book, we were alone in both rooms, for I’d have liked to have been able to eavesdrop on the conversations provoked by the work here.
When asked about the reactions provoked by her work, Helen Chadwick is quoted to have said, “Have a look at this. What do you feel? What do you think? If people go ‘ooh’, that’s it,”
I’m pretty sure we both went “oooh!” at least once! How about you?
