Bethan Huws

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Bethan Huws (born 1961) is a Welsh multi-media artist whose work explores place, identity, and translation, often using architecture and text. [1] [2] Her work has been described as "delicate, unobtrusive interventions into architectural spaces". [2]

Contents

Life and career

Huws was born in Bangor, Wales in 1961. [3] English is her second language, with Welsh being her vernacular. [4] She studied at Middlesex Polytechnic between 1981 and 1985 [5] and at the Royal College of Art, London, between 1986 and 1988. [5] At her graduate show, Huw's presented an empty studio 'having chiselled clean, inch by inch, the entire wooden-floor'. [6]

Huws' first major solo exhibition was Art Cologne 1989 at Koelnmesse GmbH in Cologne. [7] Other notable exhibitions include the Anthony Reynolds Gallery (1988), Riverside Studios (1989), Kunsthalle Bern (1990), Luis Campana Gallery (1991), the Venice Biennale (2003) and the Ingleby Gallery (2011). [2] [8] [9]

In 1991, Huws moved to Paris, France. [6]

In 1993, Huws made a film called Singing for the Sea in which eight Bulgarian women sing and dance on a beach on the North Sea coast in Northumberland, wearing traditional Bulgarian dress. The performance took place over three evenings in front of a live audience, and the resulting 12-minute film was exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp. [9]

Huws was awarded the Adolf-Luther-Trust Art Award in 1998. [10]

Between 1999 and 2000, Huws undertook The Henry Moore Sculpture Fellowship at the British School at Rome. [10]

In 2004, she won the Ludwig Gies-Award for Small-sized Sculpture by LETTER Trust, Cologne, Germany. [10]

She won the B.A.C.A. Europe 2006 award given by the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. [10]

Huws was the DAAD Artist-in-Residence between 2007 and 2008 in Berlin, Germany. [10]

Huws has lived in Berlin since 2010. [4]

Artistic style

Huws' work is centred around the re-imagining of spaces through intervention. [11] Through the use of multi-media materials, her work interrupts and redirects understanding. [11] Self-investigation is also required by the viewer to create a new interpretation of space. [3] There is a universal commentary within her work, conveying messages that can be understood without language. [6] Heavily basing her practice on Duchamp, Huws' work is often satirical, reinventing spaces in a parodical way. [3] This is achieved through her use of lettering, exemplified in works such as 'Piss off I'm a Fountain'. [1] Similarly, Huws plays with readymade elements to construct artistic perspectives. [12] She is also influenced by René Magritte's intellectual work. [3] Identity is another theme central to Huws' work, often reflecting on her life as a Welsh artist. [3] Her landscapes are usually created from memory, typically depicting farming scenes in North Wales. [6] From a young age Huws has used reeds to make miniature boats. [1] These boats carry subjective value to Huws due to their link to Wales and are incorporated creatively into her work. [12]

Exhibitions

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Sherwin, Skye (2 March 2011). "Artist of the week 128: Bethan Huws". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 Summers, Francis (2000). "Huws, Bethan". Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Bethan Huws at Galleria Vistamare, Pescara •". Mousse Magazine. 11 May 2014. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
  4. 1 2 Wiehager, Renate (2016). Bethan Huws: Choice and Precision, Coincidence and Difference. Berlin: Daimler Contemporary Berlin.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Bethan Huws Artist Biography". www.artland.com. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Bethan Huws | Frieze". Frieze. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
  7. ArtFacts. "Bethan Huws". ArtFacts. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
  8. "ARTS COUNCIL OF WALES ANNOUNCES ARTISTS FOR VENICE BIENNALE 2003" (Press release). Arts Council of Wales. 14 January 2003. Archived from the original on 13 October 2006.
    - "Further: Artists from Wales at the 50th International Art Exhibition, Venice". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
    - "Bethan Huws". Ingleby Gallery. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  9. 1 2 "'Singing for the Sea', Bethan Huws, 1993". Tate. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 "Bethan Huws". Artnet. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
  11. 1 2 "Bethan Huws, Welsh, b. 1961". Artsy. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  12. 1 2 "Hans Rudolf Reust on Bethan Huws". Artforum. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 "Bethan Huws, British 1961". Mutual Art. Retrieved 8 April 2021.

Further reading