BENYBONT
The Visual Arts
Click the name above the short biography of each guest artist to see samples of work. Those with very different styles and subject matter have kindly agreed to let me use some of their artworks for this purpose. All images remain in the copyright of the individual artist, even where the original artwork has been sold to a third party. I thank them all for their help. Links back to the artists' own web sites have been given on the individual pages where possible.
After studying Art and Design at Birmingham Polytechnic until 1986, Martin specialised in mural work for corporate customers. In 1997 he travelled to the Far East and discovered his affinity with abstract painting.
Will has no formal training. Having grown up as the eldest in a family where his father was an ‘ag lab’ he was encouraged to get out and earn a living as soon as possible, and so at 15 he took up an apprenticeship with a blacksmith. But painting was always uppermost in his mind, and he was able to supplement his wages by selling his work. Finally in 1995 after retiring he held the first of eight exhibitions at various venues in Somerset.
Although he has in the past enjoyed painting in most mediums, he now finds larger paintings in oils or acrylics are easier on the eyes. All his work reflects his love of nature and outdoor life.
Brenda specialises in animal portraits. She likes to make these representational, and normally works on a commission basis.
Ewart Davies was a photographer specialising in landscapes. He lived in South Wales and used his camera inside and outside the Principality.
Malcolm Edwards, a former architect, is a full time painter living in Halkyn, North Wales. He began painting seriously in 1980, working mainly in watercolour and pastel, firstly in a traditional manner but lately in a more adventurous and unconventional style including mixed media.Halkyn is a former lead mining village on high ground overlooking the Cheshire Plain from where one can glimpse the Lake and Derbyshire Peak Districts, the Pennines together with Snowdon and her satellites.
These wild and mountainous areas are the main source of his inspiration, and he is fascinated by the textures and forms of the buildings and landscape riven by the corrosive forces of wind and rain, and with the fickle changes of light and shadow on the faceted surfaces. Capturing these textures involves constant experiment to exploit uneven drying of the pigment combined with frequent washing out, and the use of differing painting surfaces.
His paintings are in collections in USA., Canada, Mexico, Australia, Sweden, Bermuda, South Africa, France and Germany. They have also been purchased by Rolls Royce; The Contemporary Arts Society for Wales; The National Museum and Gallery of Wales, Cardiff; The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; and The Clwyd Fine Arts Trust.
Suki worked in a number of media: oils, watercolour, pencil, pen -and-ink, charcoal etc. She tackled many subjects, but had a particular interest in portraits and figure work.
Ian Jebbett is a photographer with many interests. He likes to photograph in the area in which he lives - the home of the famous Bluestones of Stonehenge in the Preseli Mountains of Pembrokeshire - but his interests go further afield.
His background is in medical photography. He has photographed and filmed all types of medical and surgical techniques and procedures. He still enjoys being involved in the technical aspects of photography and is marketing a unique digital Macro-photography system, designed by the Austrian company, IMECO. He also runs courses in digital photography.
This has given him a good base on which to develop further photographic skills. His creative work has been exhibited throughout the U.K. and abroad, and he has taken part in a number of major exhibitions.
Aneurin M. Jones was born at Bryn Mercher in the Hydfer valley, moving when he was very young to a farmhouse three miles away called Pwll Uchaf. This is on the Carmarthenshire - Breconshire border, at Cwmwysg, at the head of the Usk Valley. Coincidentally, I wrote an essay about it - it was my maternal ancestral home - and it has been the subject of many of his paintings and drawings.
He received his higher education at Swansea College of Art, where he studied fine art. He later lived in Cardiganshire, and was well-known in Wales for his depictions of rural scenes.
His pictures were regularly exhibited at the National Eisteddfod. At Machynlleth National Eisteddfod he was awarded the major prize in the open competition for artists born or living in Wales.
In 1978 he was the recipient of a Rotary Award for outstanding service to Art. Aneurin has made numerous television appearances. He has had one and two man shows in various parts of the country, and has exhibited his work in galleries in Wales, London and America, with examples of his work in private and public collections in Britain and overseas.
Caroline Juler was born and brought up in Oxfordshire but moved to Wales in 1999 having driven there from Romania in a van with no starter motor. She is primarily a writer but started stone-carving at home in Wales largely due to the encouragement she received from other artists living nearby. She has since taken part in a number of exhibitions. Having written Blue Guide Romania and another travel book about the country called Searching for Sarmizegetusa. Caroline began organising small-group expeditions to Romania in 2006. She is currently Wales correspondent for the London-based Galleries magazine.
Influenced by the philosophy of Rudloph Steiner, Jo completed her degree in art and health. She has a deep interest in palliative care and now, from her gallery in Cliff Cottage, St Brides, Pembrokeshire, specialises in working with both adults and children.
Her own painting explores her relationship with colour, movement, light and dark. The coast with its dramatic sky and sea is a world familiar to Jo and her love for this natural environment dominates her work. Examples of this are held in private collections internationally and she has had exhibitions in Wales and England.
On leaving University, Alexandra Trowbridge-Matthews returned to Wales and has had a base in Carmarthen since 1980. She was a founder member of Playmakers, the South of England touring theatre-in-education company, as an actor and designer. Since then, of the many sets which she has designed, many have been for Welsh companies. She has a particular interest in architectural subjects plus the use of text and found objects.
Alexandra has undertaken many acting roles, Drama / Film and Writing residencies with schools and marginalised groups and has also lectured on the social uses of Drama. Alexandra has collaborated on word and image pieces with the artist, Adrian Metcalfe; some of which have been on exhibition in Michigan, USA and some were part of 'The Archivist's Madness' touring exhibition which was in the Phoenix Gallery in Brighton in 1999. She has performed her work on the BBC, HTV and BBC Radio Wales and has been a writer on the Swansea-Cork exchange, reading her poetry in the Everyman Theatre in Cork. She was one of the editors of the Roundyhouse poetry magazine and designed each of its covers.
She has had various solo exhibitions and exhibited in many joint touring shows including the 'Fragments' exhibition in Brighton.
Dan is a visual artist mixing drawing, cartoons and graffiti. He works directly on the walls of museums and art spaces with the aim of commenting on political and social issues. Dan lives in Bucharest, Romania, but works all over the world. The pictures here appeared in 2007 exhibitions at MoMa, New York and in the solo exhibition States of Mind, Nasher Museum at Duke University, 2007.
Alan Perry is a poet, painter, short story writer and illustrator. His play about homelessness in Swansea, Music You Don't Normally Hear, was directed in Cardiff by Karl Francis. Herbert Williams said of a book of his in Roundyhouse: 'These poems bristle with the grit and substance of everyday life...[Alan Perry] is an underrated Welsh Treasure." Days of the Comet, Perry's Collected Stories, was also published by Moonstone. A short story is featured on the Guest Writers section of this website.
Russmo was born in Los Angeles, California but at the age of one went to Northern Australia with his parents. After almost 13 years the family resettled in Arizona. In Arizona, he graduated from high school and later from college with a degree in journalism. Russmo has always had an interest in art, but it was during college that he first started drawing political cartoons. These are published in numerous locations in the USA and elsewhere, both online and in print.
James Selway was born and spent his childhood in South Wales but has worked elsewhere, particularly in the Barcelona area of Spain.
He has exhibited extensively in various galleries in the United Kingdom, United States and Spain and his work has been purchased by private collectors in the United Kingdom, USA, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland.
James paints with oil, acrylic and water colour and his subject matter is also extensive and includes landscapes, city scenes and figures. He tends to choose particular areas as a source for his paintings: various regions of Spain, Southern France, England and his native Wales.
If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint - Edward Hopper
For Jeffrey, painting is a compositional activity involving developing form. Interests have moved from oils to mixed media on canvas, developed largely from his interest in classical and contemporary music. In addition to portraits of composers and musicians, he has, more recently, focused on the seascape and landscape of the UK and France, particularly uninhabited fields.
Commissions have included those from famous musicians, composers and critics, as well as subjects outside the musical world. Edward Greenfield, formerly of The Guardian is an enduring patron.
Jeffrey is the featured artist in his memoir Portrait Gallery published in 2014. Jeffrey also has work in private collections in England and Wales. Exhibitions in major cities have led to permanent displays of work at public venues in London, Cardiff, Liverpool, Roehampton and Northampton. He also exhibits locally at Fountain Fine Art, Llandeilo.
