Here and Now

The visual arts in Wales are in ferment. The growing fascination in painters, installation artists, sculptors and those working in mixed and electronic media has been reflected both in booming sales and private gallery growth on the one hand and, institutionally, by new public gallery space, a first Welsh pavilion at the 2003 Venice Biennale and the worldwide Artes Mundi Prize. Here + Now offers a welcome and in depth survey of the visual arts in Wales, addressing as it does the practise of individual artists and the infrastructure in which they work. Here are essays on artists as diverse as established painters Ivor Davies and the late Ernest Zobole, through younger painters like Neal Howells, Elfyn Lewis and Sue Williams, to installation artist David Hastie and the internationally acclaimed performance artist Andre Stitt. Beyond the artist, author Iwan Bala explores what art might mean in Wales and to the Welsh, in essays about the representation of Welsh history and culture in the visual arts. He also discusses the controversial issue of how art is curated in Wales and who decides what the public sees. This stimulating book offers a snapshot of contemporary Welsh art and explores how it functions on the wider stage of world art.