” All 4 One”

January 4th – 30th

This exhibition brings together four artists and ex-colleagues who worked together at the University of Glamorgan and who have remained friends and sometime co-exhibitors for more than thirty years. We especially feature the work of Graham Talbot here whose creativity as a sculptor and painter deserves recognition. Moreover, the exhibition is a tribute to Graham’s good humour, inventiveness and generosity, qualities that were an essential element in creating such a happy working environment in the studios for teaching staff and students alike and which emerge here in his recent reworking of historical works of art, such as Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors.

Graham Talbot – Biography

Graham was born in Ebbw Vale in 1949 and now lives and works as an artist in Govilon, Abergavenny. Having started his working life as an engineering fabricator for British Steel, Graham then left to pursue his art at Newport College of Art and St Martins School of Art, London, where he studied sculpture under eminent artists such as Anthony Caro. Very much later he added to these achievements with an MA from University of Glamorgan. After leaving art college, Graham had a long career working as senior art technician and lecturer at University of Glamorgan (originally Pontypridd School of Mines before becoming the Polytechnic of Wales and now known as USW). During his time there, he also supported the curation of exhibitions in the University’s Oriel y Bont as well as exhibiting his own work in Wales and abroad. Graham pursued his own art practice throughout his career, mainly in sculpture using a wide variety of materials and processes. His creative practice has been informed by an eclectic range of sources, including literary and musical, and is recognisable by its wry sense of humour that takes in both the absurdity and the sadness of the human condition. The paintings in this exhibition were completed between 2021 and 2023 and mark a new departure for Graham.

Alan Salisbury – Biography

Alan was born in Preston, Lancashire and studied painting at Manchester and Liverpool Colleges of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. He has lived in Wales since 1974 working at the University of Glamorgan where he was Principal Lecturer in Painting and Field Leader in Arts and Media. He is a member of The Welsh Group and a full member of The Royal Cambrian Academy (RCA).

He has exhibited widely throughout the UK, in Europe and the USA. In 2005 he was Joint First Prize winner in the Liverpool School of Art Alumni Open Competition. In 2008 he was awarded First Prize in the Wales Portrait Award 2 Competition and was first prize awardee in The Wales Contemporary in 2020

Chris Nurse – Biography

Chris Nurse studied Printmaking at the Royal College of Art before completing a Rome Scholarship in 1991 and Cheltenham Fellowship in 1992. He worked in various roles as a Senior Lecturer in Art Practice at University of South Wales, including latterly as curator of the Museum Art Collection and gallery. He has exhibited internationally in Japan, USA, Germany, Italy and UK.

Chris’ work generally employs humour to explore motifs taken from the everyday and popular culture. His contribution to this exhibition is divided between two separate areas of his practice; a set of chiaroscuro woodcuts completed in 2003, as illustrations to Pyramus and Thisbe, the play within the play of William Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a recent series of collages based on TV testcards. 

The Pyramus and Thisbe woodcuts were commissioned for a limited edition artist book made in collaboration with Nicolas McDowell, of the Old Stile Press (https://www.oldstilepress.com/) based in the Wye Valley. The tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe bears similarity to the story of Romeo and Juliette but is enacted comedically by the rustic mechanicals, Bottom the Weaver and Peter Quince the Carpenter. In Chris’ series of prints, he evolved into Bottom and Nicolas into Quince. 

The collages, such as, BBC Bacon Butter Cheese, or Bradford Bradshaw Crow, reflect Chris’ peculiar nostalgia for the patterns displayed on screen between broadcast sessions before television was programmed wall to wall. He have strong memories of sitting trance-like during wet holidays in anticipation for the start of children’s television. Testcard F with the girl with her toy clown is so random; He wonders, what else could occupy this space?

Frances Woodley – Biography

Dr Frances Woodley lives and works in Cardiff. She is an artist, collaborator, writer and curator. Her cross-disciplinary practice currently uses digital painting, printing and collage as well as physical collage and small-scale construction. She is represented in Welsh public collections and ArtUK. Recent authored publications include At Cross Purposes: Three-way conversations between two artists and a curator (Aberystwyth University, 2021) and ‘Reproductions and Reimaginings: Reflections on an Interconnected Practice’ in Painting, Photography and the Digital ed. Carl Robinson (Cambridge, 2022).