A mirror to our digital
As we live more and more of our lives online, can we still connect with each other? Myles Mansfield’s new exhibition at elysium gallery, Swansea, examines the state of humanity, writes Jenny White... Two artists inspired by the south Wales Valleys are ce
SWANSEA’S elysium gallery is known for its boundary-pushing shows and Myles Mansfield’s current exhibition, #iNHUMAN, is one of its very best, transporting the viewer into a sci fi world of humanoid robots that raise big questions about what it means to be human in a digital world.
Made from scrap metal, bicycle parts, discarded mannequins, movement sensors, old cutlery and a whole array of other salvaged oddments, his kinetic sculptures are highly interactive, performing their magic when you turn a handle or responding to your presence with eerily human movements.
In Distraction, a humanoid figure is fixated on its phone, glancing up at the viewer briefly before returning its eyes to the screen. Mansfield is a sci fi fan who is fascinated by visions of a dystopian future. What are we becoming as technology takes over from normal physical interaction? What does it mean for our identities to be formed online?
One of the most arresting pieces in the show, (In)dividuation, features a mechanical foetus in an oil-filled glass ‘womb’, cameras trained on it from all angles. It’s a reminder that many humans now make their first online appearance before they have even been born – in scan photos.
Several of the pieces address our increasing sense of disconnection and the role of the internet in this – in Alexa Do You Love Me, a robot asks its Alexa the question and waits for Alexa’s empty response, while in The Kiss (a nod to Rodin) a robot blows a kiss to an absent partner. The witty Social Anxiety Machine – a lockdown creation – gives conflicting gestures, a hand held out and then snatched back to cover the face, accompanied by the words “don’t touch me”. Are we losing our desire to connect?
It’s a show full of wit and wonder – moodily lit, provocative and unsettling – a tour de force that reflects Mansfield’s varied career before training as an artist. Stints as a mechanic and as a plumber and boiler engineer gave him the technical skill required to make these pieces work.
He completed his undergraduate degree and MA at UWTSD in Swansea, where he first embraced kinetic sculpture. He had initially intended to train as a painter, but one of his lecturers, the sculptor Sarah Tombs, opened his
FOUNTAIN Fine Art in Llandeilo is celebrating the work of the late George Chapman and figure painter Alastair Elkes-Jones with an exhibition focused on the people and streets of the south Wales Valleys.
Chapman, who died in 1993, was a printmaker and painter and studied at Gravesend School of Art, Royal College of Art and Slade School of Fine Art. A visit to the Rhondda in 1953 made a huge impression on him and his subsequent paintings of the industrial Valleys saw him achieve great critical and commercial success with sell-out exhibitions in London in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Gallery owner Richard Braine says: “Long before I owned a gallery, I was aware of George Chapman’s work. Sadly, George died before I had a chance to meet him but, since that time, I’ve developed a deep appreciation of his work, which hinged on the south Wales Valleys of the 1950s and 1960s. He painted in muted colour that perfectly reflected the mood of the time. His etchings were gritty and honest.”
Elkes-Jones was born in Llangollen in 1942 before moving to Mumbles in his early thirties. Painting has been a life-long pursuit that has seen him exhibit widely and in his own gallery in the early 2000s. Despite decades of successful exhibiting, he embarked on and completed his Fine Art degree in Swansea in his early seventies.
His painting technique changed little as a result of the training – his depictions of figures and his local coastline are made through successive layers of paint using both palette knife and brush to form his own expressive blend of texture and colour.
“Alastair’s figures are based on people he’s seen, both past and present,” says Richard. “Some are a reflection of current society, others are deeply cemented in the past.
“Colourful and slightly abstract in nature, these paintings complement the monochromatic etchings of the late George Chapman’s perfectly. I believe these two artists between them create a sense of place that is undeniably Welsh in nature.”
■ The exhibition opens today and runs until April 30 at Fountain Fine Art, 115 Rhosmaen Street, Llandeilo. More details can be found at www.fountainfineart.com