Art in Isolation - Gwyn Roberts, Penelope Timmis SWA, Ruth Shelley

About

Gwyn Roberts and Penelope Timmis SWA have been creative during the past 12 months, using the lockdown restrictions to produce more stunning work for this exhibition.  They are joined by contemporary glassware expert Ruth Shelley with her signature bright and vivid glassware.

Lockdown has proved a particular challenge for Welsh artist Gwyn Roberts, who suffered a nasty fall at the height of the pandemic last year. But it hasn’t stopped him picking up his palette knife, and he has spent his time recuperating by creating beautiful paintings of some of his favourite places in North and West Wales.

Gwyn, one of Wales’ finest contemporary landscape artists, says: “Like most people, I’ve had a very, very strange year. In March, I was told that I had to shield.  Then, to make things worse, in April, at the height of the virus, I managed to slip on some mud, while I was gardening, and I ended up in hospital for nine days, with a triple spiral break of my femur - not a wise move!

“I had fantastic treatment from the NHS staff at the hospital and the community physiotherapy unit, for which I shall always be so grateful, but it is going to be a long recovery. All of this has necessarily restricted my ability to travel, even when we were not in lockdown, and this has obviously had an effect on this show. 

“While sitting in the garden recovering, I’ve thought of the better times to come, when it will be possible to be out enjoying and being inspired by our amazing landscapes.  In my mind, I have revisited some of the beautiful places in Wales that I know so well, and I have used this inspiration to paint some of my favourite images, such as the Glyderau Mountains in Snowdonia and the stunning coastline of West Wales.”

Gwyn’s style is instantly recognisable, not only because of his firm, bold geometric strokes with the palette knife, but also because of the dramatic contrasts of light and shade in his work.

Artist Penelope Timmis SWA has taken full advantage of the opportunity to be productive and experimental in her painting.

She lives in a converted church on the Welsh border in Shropshire and says it has been a delight to be confined to her home and also to the Welsh coast of Scotland where she spent the entire second lockdown. She has ingratiated the challenge to paint only what has been around her from a bedroom to a woodshed.

She has always longed to experiment with oils and took the opportunity to do this during her lockdown painting.

She says: “I paint very differently when using oils. I am used to painting with acrylics. The oils are much more heavy and sticky, I love them. I only hope I’ve managed to maintain my loose style and keep some movement going.”

Penelope will be exhibiting for the fourth time with The Albany Gallery and her interior paintings play a large part in the exhibition, although lockdown in Shropshire and Scotland allowed Penelope ample opportunity to paint the landscape she loves so much and she has also included a collection of her iconic birds that are always so popular.

Ruth Shelley’s stunning glassware will also be part of the exhibition. Ruth, from Cardiff, specialises in contemporary glass design, using vivid, dramatic colour in kiln formed glass. Ruth is inspired by travelling and the love of nature around her, including the beautiful Roath Park in Cardiff. Through layered glass she creates a dialogue of lines, patterns and colour and always observes how the colours and layers combine as a whole, and how light illuminates them.