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The National Eisteddfod 2017 has recognised the works of two Welsh artists with gold medals. Here the judges explain what so impressed them about the women’s work
TWO WELSH artists have been awarded a National Eisteddfod gold medal – one for her “striking and evocative” work, another for her “beguiling” 3D newsprint forms.
Julia Griffiths Jones, from Llanybri, Carmarthen, who created a “wire room” containing a Welsh dresser, a bed from Slovakia, clothing and a table and chairs, has won a Gold Medal for Craft and Design at the Anglesey 2017 National Eisteddfod of Wales.
Open exhibition judges artist Carwyn Evans and curators Ceri Jones and Jessica Hemmings were unanimous in their decision that Bangorborn Julia should win the top medal plus a cash prize of £5,000.
Her recreation of a traditional cottage interior “Room within a Room” is made entirely of mild steel wire.
Selector Jessica Hemmings said of the installation: “Julia Griffiths Jones has found a way to create drawings in the air ... Her way of seeing is partially familiar – we recognise the shapes of domestic objects and decorative details – but they are transformed into structural marks and cast shadows. The result feels as though a little magic is at work.’
Educated at Winchester School of Art and The Royal College of Art, as a student Julia won a travel bursary which took her to Slovakia to study folk art and culture. Years later the idea for the award–winning installation took shape when she came across a reconstruction of a Welsh farmhouse kitchen at her local museum in Abergwili.
“It was a room that you could not enter, where the viewer could only imagine the intense activities of domestic life being carried out daily,” said Julia.
“Having drawn and documented similar scenes in cottages in Eastern Europe, I wanted to bring imagery from these two cultures together using line drawing in steel as the connecting factor.”
Carwyn Evans said: “Julia’s work is so fine as to be almost not there... Informed by drawing, the outlines relate directly to objects, shapes and forms that we can identify. We imaginatively feel the work’s thinness between finger and thumb: a want to touch, explore, inhabit.”
Ceri Jones said: “Julia’s striking and evocative forms resonate on many levels. That this is a domestic tableau makes the notion of absence all the more poignant. Who will tend to the kettle or slip on the socks? The details are suggestive and the shadows allusive.”
Meanwhile Cardiff artist Cecile Soliz Johnson, who investigates the possibilities of three dimensional drawing has won the Gold Medal for Fine Art, with a £5,000 prize.
The California-raised artist once worked in clay, nowadays she uses simple newsprint, charcoal and paint, and was the judges’ unanimous choice.
Carwyn said: “This artist’s work offers an immediate visual feast: dramatic and elegant, clean, pristine, new – the work is devoid of a sense of history and we’re unaware of what time-space we’re in. For me, the perceived privilege of being ‘first-witness’ is heightened. Prolonged viewing encourages its reveal/undress, making apparent its construction, and reminds us that the art object exists as the result of actions performed on materials – a simple truth of any work of art.”
Ceri added: “The combination of scale, profile and materiality is coherent and beguiling. There is an aesthetic in this work that, for me, resonates with Cecile’s ceramic sculptures of a decade ago. It is that study of form and placement, its quiet poise in a space.” And Jessica said: “The driving curiosity Cecile has brought to such basic materials – paper and black paint – is humbling. It makes so much of the visual chaos around us seem like diversion tactics. Just study something. Anything. Really knowing how something so mundane can be tested and questioned and tested again is such a beautiful reminder that nothing is boring. Ever.”
Cecile said: “I draw on paper with charcoal and draw with paper and other materials like cloth and wire in a more physical, sculptural way. I combine these and place them together, so that they relate to one another and to the space of the exhibition.
“I notice gestures and actions that are part of daily activities: winding, wrapping, squashing, rolling, pressing, folding, intertwining … these all call attention to common, simple, daily processes and are close to hand – to do with touching and ‘making things’. I am curious about both the physical and conceptual aspects of making art. These two strands can go together in fascinating and surprising ways. It is exciting to consider how paintings, drawings and sculpture are inter-related and how they can be placed, hung, propped or wedged in an exhibition, to make particular conversations within a shared space.”
Meanwhile, student Marged Elin Owain from Caernarfon won the £1,500 Young Artist Scholarship.
Ms Owain, 22, recently graduated from Manchester School of Art and will use her scholarship to pay for a course in Seattle and a Masters degree in glass design at Sunderland.
The works are featured in Y Lle Celf exhibition at the National Eisteddfod.
Festival chief executive Elfed Roberts said: “It’s vitally important that Y Lle Celf reflects the visual arts sector here in Wales, and that we provide the most effective space possible for a wide range of artistic genres.
“I very much hope that visitors will be entranced by Julia’s work which has been placed in a simple yet very effective space. I urge all Eisteddfod visitors to take the time to explore Y Lle Celf to see the work in this year’s exhibition. You will not be disappointed.”
Entry to Y Lle Celf is free with an Eisteddfod Maes ticket.