IWAN BALA

AR BAPUR

04|02 - 11|03|2023

Mae TEN yn falch o gyflwyno arddangosfa o waith newydd gan yr artist nodedig, Iwan Bala.

Mae’r corff newydd yn cynnwys dros 30 o ddarluniau cyfrwng cymysg ar bapur - papur cotwm Khadi. Dyma’r math o bapur a gysylltir ag Iwan Bala oherwydd ei ddefnydd cyson ohono dros flynyddoedd lawer. Mae’n bapur trwchus a chryf sy’n gallu gwrthsefyll haenau’r paent a marciau trwm y croesi allan a’r cywiro.

Mae’r themau hefyd a welir yn y gwaith yn nodweddiadol ohono. Darlunir llenyddiaeth Cymru, ei sefyllfa boliticaidd, y bygythiadau iddi, ei gorffennol â’i phresennol. Amwlg hefyd yw y defnydd o eiriau - barddoniaeth, anthem o gân Dafydd Iwan, gofyn ac ateb galwad ceidwad cleddyf yr Orsedd - geiriau sy’n rhan o isymwybod y Cymry.

Dyma Gymru ar bapur

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TEN is proud to present new paintings by the prominent artist, Iwan Bala. This new body includes over 30 mixed media works on paper - handmade cotton Khadi paper which is characteristic of Bala. The paper becomes part of his way of working - textural, tactile and tough, it can withstand the many layers of paint and the heavy mark-making.

Themes seen in the work are also characteristic of him - namely the culture of Cymru and the Welsh language. The literature of Cymru is prominent, as are the politics and the threats, her past and her present. Words take centre stage - poetry, Dafydd Iwan’s anthem, the call and response of the keeper of the sword of the Gorsedd - words that are part of the Welsh subconscious.

This is Cymru on paper.

Text by Dylan Huw, writer and critic:

Mae gan ddelweddau Iwan Bala dueddiad i awgrymu trosiadau mwy real na realiti ei hunan. Gwelwn dŷ haf yn llyncu map o Gymru, â’i ffyrdd yn gyrru i’r dwyrain; gwelwn “eiriadur hiraeth” ffuglennol sy’n dod i fodolaeth mewn trawiadau o baent. Yn ei waith diweddaraf, ystyria Iwan Bala ei statws fel un o unig artistiaid cyfoes Cymru y mae ei eirfa weledol wedi treiddio i is-ddychymyg diwylliannol ein cenedl, os ydy’r fath beth yn bodoli. Benthycir un engraifft ar ôl y llall o eiconograffi diwylliant Cymraeg ail hanner y ganrif ddiwethaf (Un Nos Ola Leuad; “Yma o Hyd”), mewn deialog â motiffs hirdymor yr artist o galigraffi cain a mapiau dychmygus. Dyma awgrymu lwybrau newydd yn archwiliad Iwan Bala o gydblethiad iaith a thirwedd, ac hefyd y cysyniad (neu’r posibilrwydd) o Gymru ‘gyfoes.’ Mae ei gyfrwng—marciau cyhyrog ar bapur Khadi, wedi gwneud â llaw—yn adlewyrchu awdurdod a breuder ei destunau bytholwyrdd. Have we taken the earth and lost the sky, mae un paentiad yn gofyn, cwestiwn sy’n nodweddiadol o’r modd mae ymholiadau diwylliannol Iwan Bala wastad yn bodoli’n rhan o gyd-destun rhyngwladol ac hyd yn oed planedol. Dyma baentiadau sy’n cynnig cartograffau o botensialrwydd Cymreig, totemau i obaith ac anobaith casglebol, darnau ar bapur sy’n fregus ac yn gyfoethog â phosibilrwydd diderfyn. Edrychwch yn ofalus arnynt ac efallai gwelwch chi ddyfodol nad oeddech wedi meddwl ei ddychmygu o’r blaen.

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Iwan Bala’s images have a way of proposing metaphors so real that they exceed reality itself. A holiday home swallows a map of Wales, its driveways directed one-way; a “dictionary of longing” is a fiction actualised. In these latest works, Bala reflexively expands upon, and perhaps thematises, his status as one of the few contemporary artists working in this country whose visual lexicon feels woven into a national cultural fabric, insofar as such a thing exists. Signifiers of latter-twentieth-century Cymraeg iconography (perhaps its most famous novel, Caradog Pritchard’s Un Nos Ola Leuad; perhaps its most famous song, “Yma o Hyd”) are appropriated, and placed in dialogue with Bala’s long-term motifs of map-making and calligraphic provocation. Here as elsewhere, the paintings suggest new avenues in the artist’s exploration of the intertwinement not only of language and landscape, but of the very idea (the very possibility) of a Welsh culture, a Welsh history, a Welsh contemporary. His medium — muscular mark-making on Khadi paper, handmade — belies the simultaneous assertiveness and fragility of his evergreen subjects. Have we taken the earth and lost the sky, one painting asks, insistent; a characteristic Iwan Bala query, contextualising questions sometimes mistaken for being parochial on the global and cosmic scales they demand. These paintings offer cartographies of Welsh potentiality, totems to collective hope and despair alike, both fragile and rich in unending possibility. Look closely into their lines and marks and you might see a future you didn’t know was there.

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