Mary Lloyd Jones

Last updated

Mary Lloyd Jones
Cwm Rheidol.jpg
Cwm Rheidol
Born1934
Devils Bridge, Cardiganshire
NationalityWelsh
Education Cardiff School of Art, Cardiff
Known forPainting and printmaking
Website marylloydjones.co.uk

Mary Lloyd Jones FLSW (born 1934) is a Welsh painter and printmaker based in Aberystwyth. [1] Her works are multilayered and use devices that reflect an interest in the beginnings of language, including early man-made marks and the ogham and bardic alphabets. She has exhibited across Wales and internationally.

Contents

Work

Lloyd Jones was born in Devil's Bridge, Cardiganshire (now Ceredigion) [1] and attended art school immediately upon leaving school. Her ambition was always to be an artist. However, she did not begin to exhibit work publicly until 1966, when she was in her early 30s. [2] Ceridwen Lloyd Morgan attributes this relatively late flowering to the fact that she was a Welsh woman from a rural background. As Lloyd Jones has stated: "At times I felt that I belonged to the wrong sex and was living in the wrong time and place to be a successful artist." [2] In 1989 she gave up her job as visual arts officer for the county of Dyfed to become a full-time artist. [3] From this point her work evolved to take the form of large, irregularly shaped paintings which were unstretched. Such works were associated with cloth, stitching and dye-soaking into the cloth. [4] Later she returned to more traditional forms of painting, as well as producing proclamatory banners.

Lost Language Lostlanguage.jpg
Lost Language

Lloyd Jones's work is greatly inspired by the landscape in which she grew up, a prominent feature of which is the scarred landscape associated with a legacy of lead mining. This sense of place is further augmented by her own Welsh-language cultural inheritance. Ann Price-Owen has referred to her work as that of a custodian of her cultural heritage, which is implicitly language-based. [5] Experiences outside Wales have also provided key stages in her work's development. An interest in early alphabets was precipitated by a visit to Ilkley Moor to view cup and ring marks. [6] Incorporation of such marks into the work led to an identification with the 18th-century Welsh bard, scholar and antiquarian Iolo Morganwg, who created his own bardic alphabet, "Coelbren". She regards the use of scripts such as the ancient ogham script in her work as an oblique reference to the otherness of Welshness. Iwan Bala argues that these works demand some form of contextualising, revealing the artist's concerns and her position within her own culture. [7] In the Summer of 2009 Ruthin Craft Centre showed Lloyd Jones's early textile work, which led to a re-evaluation of this work by a new audience. [8] A second show in 2013 was reviewed in the magazine Embroidery. [9] In February 2013 she was awarded the first Artist Residency at the Old College, Aberystwyth University, and moved into a new studio there. [10] Some of her paintings are in the public collections of the National Library of Wales, Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales and Cardiff University.

Lloyd Jones joined the 56 Group Wales as an associate member in 1971, and was a full member from 1973 to 1986. [11]

In October 2014 she published her autobiography, No Mod Cons, an account both of her struggles to paint and of her attempts to organise a better world for Welsh artists. [12]

In 2016, she was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. [13]

Solo exhibitions

Residencies

Listed by Martin Tinney Gallery unless otherwise stated.[ citation needed ]

Books by Mary Lloyd Jones

Related Research Articles

<i>Mabinogion</i> Earliest Welsh prose stories

The Mabinogion are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created c. 1350–1410, as well as a few earlier fragments. The title covers a collection of eleven prose stories of widely different types, offering drama, philosophy, romance, tragedy, fantasy and humour, and created by various narrators over time. There is a classic hero quest, "Culhwch and Olwen"; a historic legend in "Lludd and Llefelys", complete with glimpses of a far off age; and other tales portray a very different King Arthur from the later popular versions. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defies categorisation. The stories are so diverse that it has been argued that they are not even a true collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iolo Morganwg</span> Welsh antiquarian forger and poet (1747–1826)

Edward Williams, better known by his bardic name Iolo Morganwg, was a Welsh antiquarian, poet and collector. He was seen as an expert collector of Medieval Welsh literature, but it emerged after his death that he had forged several manuscripts, notably some of the Third Series of Welsh Triads. Even so, he had a lasting impact on Welsh culture, notably in founding the secret society known as the Gorsedd, through which Iolo Morganwg successfully co-opted the 18th-century Eisteddfod revival. The philosophy he spread in his forgeries has had an enormous impact upon neo-Druidism. His bardic name is Welsh for "Iolo of Glamorgan".

Awen is a Welsh, Cornish and Breton word for "inspiration".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MOMA, Wales</span> Art museum in Powys, Wales

MOMA Machynlleth or Museum of Modern Art, Machynlleth is an arts centre and gallery adjacent to Y Tabernacl in Machynlleth, Powys, Wales.

Euros Bowen was a poet in the Welsh language and a priest.

David James Jones, commonly known by his bardic name Gwenallt, was a Welsh poet, critic, and scholar, and one of the most important figures of 20th-century Welsh-language literature. He created his bardic name by transposing Alltwen, the name of the village across the river from his birthplace.

Menna Elfyn, FLSW is a Welsh poet, playwright, columnist, and editor who writes in Welsh. She has been widely commended and translated. She was imprisoned for her campaigning as a Welsh-language activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Williams (Welsh artist)</span> Welsh artist (1873–1934)

Christopher David Williams was a Welsh artist.

Gwendoline Elizabeth Davies, CH, was a Welsh philanthropist and patron of the arts who, with her sister Margaret, is recognised as the most influential collector of Impressionist and 20th-century art in Wales. She and her sister were independently wealthy, their fortune inherited from the businesses created by their grandfather, the industrialist David Davies. Davies and her sister created one of the most important private collections of art in Britain and donated their total of 260 works to what is now the National Museum Wales in the mid-20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Griffith (Clwydfardd)</span> Welsh poet

David Griffith, known by the bardic name of Clwydfardd, was a Welsh poet and Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shani Rhys James</span> Welsh artist (born 1953)

Shani Rhys James MBE is a Welsh painter based in Llangadfan, Powys. She has been described as "arguably one of the most exciting and successful painters of her generation" and "one of Wales' most significant living artists". She was elected to the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art in 1994. In the 2006 New Years Honours she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for "services to art".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Thomas (photographer)</span> Welsh photographer

John Thomas was a Welsh photographer, specialising in landscape images of Wales and Welsh chapels, and portraits of notable Welsh people, particularly church and chapel ministers.

Taliesin Williams was a Welsh poet and author, and son of the notable Iolo Morganwg.

<i>Barddas</i>

Barddas is a book of material compiled and written by the Welsh writer Iolo Morganwg. Dressed as an authentic compilation of ancient Welsh bardic and druidic theology and lore. It was posthumously published by John Williams for the Welsh Manuscripts Society in two volumes, in 1862 and 1874.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coelbren y Beirdd</span> Constructed script

The Coelbren y Beirdd is a script created in the late eighteenth century by the Welsh antiquarian and literary forger Edward Williams, best known as Iolo Morganwg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Gray Jones</span> Welsh writer, journal editor, temperance leader (1852–1943)

Alice Gray Jones, OBE was a Welsh writer and editor, known by the pseudonym Ceridwen Peris. She was an active temperance campaigner, and a co-founder of the North Wales Women's Temperance Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine Kinsey</span> Welsh artist (born 1942)

Christine Kinsey is a Welsh artist, author and curator, now based in Pembrokeshire. She was the co-founder and artistic director of Chapter Workshops and Centre for the Arts, Cardiff, now called Chapter Arts Centre.

Geraint Huw Jenkins, FBA, FLSW is a historian of Wales and a retired academic. He was Professor of Welsh History at the Aberystwyth University from 1990 to 1993, when he became Director of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. In 2009, he retired from academia and was appointed Professor Emeritus of Welsh History at the University of Wales.

Claudia Jane Herington Williams was a British artist known for her paintings, often large colourful portraits. Although born in England, Williams spent the majority of her career painting in Wales.

Christine Jones is a Welsh artist and ceramicist who won the Gold Medal for art and design at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 2000.

References

  1. 1 2 Mary Lloyd Jones (2001). The Colour of Saying: The Work of Mary Lloyd Jones. Gomer Press with Aberystwyth Arts Centre. ISBN   978-1-85902-869-8.
  2. 1 2 Lloyd Morgan, Ceridwen (2002). Delweddau o'r ymylon: Bywyd a gwaith Mary Lloyd Jones. Y Lolfa. p. 7. ISBN   0862435579.
  3. ↑ Jenkins, Nigel (2001). Singing the Landscape. Gomer Press with Aberystwyth Arts Centre. p. 20. ISBN   1859028691.
  4. ↑ Ropek, Eve (2001). The Colour of Saying: Mary Lloyd Jones. Gomer Press with Aberystwyth Arts Centre. p. 10. ISBN   1859028691.
  5. ↑ Price-Owen, Anne (2006). Mother Tongue: Celebrating the Word in Images. Gomer with the National Library of Wales. p. 42. ISBN   1843235404.
  6. ↑ Price-Owen, Anne (2006). Mother Tongue: Celebrating the Word in Images. Gomer with the National Library of Wales. p. 43. ISBN   1843235404.
  7. ↑ Bala, Iwan (2006). Song Lines, 'Swyn ar Bapur'. Gomer with the National Library of Wales. p. 81. ISBN   1843235404.
  8. ↑ Hughes, Hughes (2013). Mary Lloyd Jones: Signs of Life. p. 5.
  9. ↑ Bell, Ellen (2013). Mary Lloyd Jones: Signs of Life: Exhibition Review. p. 56.
  10. 1 2 Mary Lloyd Jones: Signs of Life. 2013. p. 35.
  11. ↑ Moore, David (2012). A Taste of the Avant-Garde: 56 Group Wales, 56 years. Brecon: Crooked Window. p. 32. ISBN   978-0-9563602-1-2.
  12. ↑ No Mod Cons , Welsh Books Council. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
  13. ↑ Wales, The Learned Society of. "Mary Lloyd Jones". The Learned Society of Wales. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  14. ↑ Exhibitions, marylloydjones.co.uk. Retrieved 28 February 2017
  15. ↑ Mary Lloyd Jones: Signs of Life. 2013. p. 37.
  16. ↑ "Mary Lloyd Jones". Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.