Gallery 1

Iwan Bala & Tim Davies

18 October - 29 November

Free admission to the new contemporary art exhibition at Oriel Wrecsam (previously known as Wrexham Arts Centre) by prestigious, artists of Wales, Iwan Bala and Tim Davies. The formally austere and precise yet lyrical vision of Tim Davies is juxtaposed with the free and rugged visual language of Iwan Bala.

The two artists have created new work for the exhibition with links made between Wales and Liverpool. The work features commissioned pieces in- line with Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture status.

A catalogue has been commissioned for the exhibition that will go on to tour other venues in 2009/10.

Copyright reserved by the artists

Copyright reserved by the artists

Extracts from the catalogue include:

‘Lob Scouse’.

For me, born and brought up near Bala, Liverpool was
the wondrous city of Christmas shopping, with its great
department stores and escalators, it’s impressive
Mersey tunnel,
its cathedrals and (as I grew older)
its Walker Art Gallery, football,
Anfield, and one memorable week
spent at Liverpool University in
a Christian Youth Festival (with a
thousand delegates from all over
the world) when I was seventeen.
Liverpool, to all intents and
purposes was ‘the capitol of north
Wales’…
… These are some themes that I
have mulled over, drawn and
painted, and consolidated
into a ‘Lob Scouse’ that is my
response, not so much to the
Liverpool of now, but the Liverpool
of my imagination as a child
of a particular north Wales.
Iwan Bala. September 2008

You Me, Us Them.

The works in this exhibition develop some ideas
that I’ve been working with over the last few years,
including responses to my recent visit to Liverpool.

… When in Liverpool I sought out Sir William Goscombe John’s 1905 war memorial in St. John’s Gardens in the city centre. I’d already worked with Goscombe John’s Drummer Boy at the National Museum Cardiff, revisiting the sound of the drum as the boy ‘beats a stirring and joyful call to arms’. There in Liverpool stands his mate, still caught mid-rhythm.  This monument pays tribute to  those lost in campaigns in Burma, South Africa and Afghanistan, the latter between 1878 and 1880. Yet over a century later we are fighting another campaign in Afghanistan. Conflict continues. It’s us against them. It’s in our blood.  I thought of the young John Lennon and friends possibly walking past, even hanging around this Drummer Boy, still mid-beat in the 1950s, as teenagers had done - chatting and drinking - during my visit in the spring of 2008. Lennon became a working class hero of another
kind, writing lyrics such as ‘imagine all the people living life in peace’, ‘give peace a chance’ and with Yoko Ono ‘making love not war’…
… You Me, Us Them (DVD) These straightforward videos look at the simplicity of language which belies the harsh polarity between two standpoints - choices. It’s a choice of you or me and us or them. It’s the fear of the ‘other’.
Tim Davies. September 2008

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Gallery 1 Opening Times

9.30am - 6.45pm Monday to Friday
9.30am - 3.45pm Saturday

Admission free.