Artist who re-imagined the Welsh Valleys
DESCRIBED as “one of the visionary artists of Wales”, Ernest Zobole’s paintings are strikingly original reflections of a landscape he found inspirational.
Born in Ystrad Rhondda in 1927, to Italian immigrant parents, Zobole attended Porth Grammar School and Cardiff College of Art, before serving in the army in Palestine and Egypt.
On his return, he spent five years at a teaching post in Anglesey, but was unable to settle in the north Wales community, and yearned for the landscapes of his childhood.
In 1957 he returned to the Rhondda, teaching in Treorchy County Secondary School, and later becoming a lecturer at Newport Art School. Although he lived and worked in several places around Wales, he spent most of his life in Ystrad and the life and landscape of the valleys around him remained the focus of his painting.
Zobole’s early paintings followed a traditional form, but by the 1960s, he was developing his own unique style.
He was influenced by Van Gogh, and by renowned Welsh artist
Ceri Richards, who was his tutor, and began experimenting with colour in the manner of avant garde European artists, using a monochrome palette, and a technique of thickly layering paint, known as impasto.
Always inspired by the industrial setting of the Rhondda Valleys, his vibrant paintings deconstruct and re-imagine both form and context – taking snapshot glimpses of everyday places and giving them an alternative, and distinct perspective.
The images have a momentary, hybrid, and evolving feel, often incorporating a human figure, whose enigmatic presence only serves to further open the possibilities of the scene.
Of the imagery in his work, Zobole said:
“The outside and inside come together in places. The system used in painting parallels one we use naturally, in that when we examine any situation, we look around or turn our heads, or move our eyes, or more likely, do all three.
“The differing viewpoints we take in help us build some kind of picture… scale varies and emphasis varies; there is also time and memory.”
A beautiful example of Zobole’s work is to be offered at Anthemion Auctions in Cardiff on February 19.
One of his later works, entitled simply “interior scene”, the painting displays an unusually bold colour palette, incorporating bright yellows and oranges as well as deep hues of blue and purple.
Not only do inside and outside come together in this scene, rooms and perspectives in a house merge, and the bright illumination of a household bulb is seen alongside the filtered light of night-time windows spilling on to pavement.
Night and day themselves seem to collide, with scudding orange dusk clouds visible through a window, while a vaulted ceiling disperses into deep blue night and stars above.
The painting will be offered at Anthemion Auctions on February 19, alongside a large selection by other Welsh artists, works of art, ceramics, silverware and jewellery.
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