Ffocws #5

‘Here on the edge of the Dee we have big skies and positively feral weather. I work quickly from direct observation and the experience of living in this world of wild storms, ferocious wind, dismal cloud and incessant rain.’

Painted over twelve months between September 2023 and August 2024 , Cheryl’s atmospheric semi-abstract works are a direct response to the wind , rain, and many many cloudy days over those four seasons The inherent unpredictability and fluidity of watercolour and direct gestural marks made with charcoal and chalk are an essential feature of these works translating the movement of the wind, colours of spring trees, summer fields and the endless dismal days of rain and cloud of late autumn and winter into expressive and energetic paintings.

Working and living in Flintshire, Cheryl trained in Fine Art at Liverpool Polytechnic and The Slade School of Art, London. After working part time as a lecturer in Fine Art, she retrained and worked as a creative therapist before becoming a full-time artist.

Paul Croft qualified as a Master Printer at the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque in 1996 and currently is Senior Lecturer in Printmaking at the School of Art, Aberystwyth. He has written two books on Stone Lithography (2001) and Plate Lithography (2003). He was elected as a Fellow of The Royal Society Painter Printmakers in 2008 and the Royal Cambrian Academy in 2022.

These six new lithographs completed in 2025 for the series Harbourside Fishery were developed from drawings of fishing boats and quaysides made at different ports including Aberystwyth in Wales, and Kilkeel, Annalong and Ballintoy in Northern Ireland. Abstract compositions are largely derived from sections of boats, rudders and the paraphernalia to do with fishing. The prints build upon those completed in recent years for the Quayside Construct Series 2023-2024 and Aber Ebb and Flow 2021-2022 and reflect the change in focus that began during Covid, to make images that are more closely connected with the local environment.

Key drawings for each of the six prints in the series were drawn on stone using lithographic crayon, pencil, pen and ink and tusche wash. In several of the prints, transfers from inked up corrugated cardboard and other materials including grained wood were incorporated as well. In developing further colour print runs, some colours were printed from photoplates, pre-exposed with textures including rubbings from woodgrain, concrete, corrugated card and stone – selectively printed using papercut stencils. Further colour runs were printed from ball-grained aluminium plates, drawn with crayon and tusche.

“The balance between too little and too much, what is visually pleasing and total chaos, is something that I’m constantly playing with.”

This current body of work presents the subtle implementations of layers and loud statements of colour and form. The abstract forms are derived from my own study and understanding of my dyslexic brain.

I am a multi-disciplined visual artist based in North Wales; my work is the exploration of materials and relationships between surface and object, colour, layers, and patterns. From drawings to screen-prints, photography, video, live-art, sculptural forms and installations. I’m a member of artist-led network CARN, Regional Print Centre and Disability Arts Cymru. Recently won an honorary Eirian Llwyd memorial award 2022.

Bronwen Gwillim’s work explores the hyper-local, using materials found within a mile or so of her home on the South Pembrokeshire coast in west wales. This approach is inspired by the concept of Miltir Sgwär – the sense of being embedded in your immediate environment, connecting with its deep time, knowing its inhabitants and taking only what you need.

Bronwen’s materials are both ‘natural” and human-made: repurposed cloth, locally foraged earth pigment, homemade plant binders and, the material she is most known for……plastic. Using waste plastic which has been washed up on the beach fulfils her lust for bright colour, working with earth and plants connects her with the geology, flora and fauna of her environment. Led by these materials and their inherent materiality, her work flows between craft, painting, textiles, jewellery and sculpture. She collages contrasting materials together as shallow reliefs, rich earthy textures combine with florescent pops of colour, hard and soft surfaces and shapes inspired by coronas, diatoms, and worms suggest a microscopic world beyond our comprehension.

The paintings were made in 2023 following an extended Artist in Residence in Morocco, close to the Atlas mountains where the desert light was profoundly inspirational. The works titled Essaouira refer to the small town near Marrakesh that Andrew regularly visited and Ameln refers to the remote valley near Tafraoute, that has a backdrop of mountains providing an ever-changing colour experience. Part of the same series of work, Valletta refers to the capital of Malta, visited the same year and where Andrew considered the work of Victor Pasmore in the context of the ancient civilization of the island nation that Pasmore, one of the pioneering Abstract artists of the twentieth century, lived and worked..

Andrew’s painting methodology of working on location is defined as creating ‘scapes’ (involving multiple facets of a subject) evolved through both exploratory studies and in the production of a definitive project portfolio for exhibition. Taking as a point of reference the idea of non-place, Andrew’s painting has evolved through a parallel questioning of objectivity exploring memory and experience. He uses diffused imagery to interrogate reality, a dense clustering of line, shape and colour; intersections, gestures and directions. Rhythm and spontaneity are indicative of current work, combining both the rational and emotional state of making.