|
Emrys Parry
|
Born in Bangor, Gwynedd, Emrys Parry was brought up in Nefyn on the Llyn Peninsula. He attended Pwllheli Grammar School where he was a pupil of Elis Gwyn Jones.
Emrys Parry in his studio.
|
|
|
|
"Rembrancers Lament" by Emrys Parry
|
|
| |
|
'For nearly forty years, Emrys has lived and taught in East Anglia, most recently as Head of Diploma and Visual Studies at Norwich School of Art and Design. He retired from teaching in 1997 to work full time as an artist. He has however, never lost sight of his childhood home in Nefyn, nor the landscape, the people and the rich fabric of history associated with Llyn. He returns to North Wales as often as he can to provide fuel for his work.
|
"Two Heads" by Emrys Parry
|
It is important to Emrys those things seen and heard remain indelible in the memory across a lifetime and it is part of his skill as a painter to make these memories available to others through his images. He draws on both living memory and ancient tradition; particular events or features of a contemporary world and memories of a Celtic mythology and legend are present in his art, not as direct illustration but as an integral element in the landscape and its features.
|
|
"Because I spent a great deal of time away from my home, following my studies, whenever I returned I would tend to bump into old friends and acquaintances along a popular coastal path on the Llyn Peninsula. This work suggests the meeting of two entities and the passing of thoughts, ideas and emotions between them."
|
'His work conveys certainty and generosity, and being naturally an heir to a strong oral and literate tradition, I see his work as that of a poet writing in cynghanedd-in the strict metres, the strict metres of poetry expressed in colour and line.'
Elis Gwyn Jones
|
| |
|
"Eglwys Pystyll" by Emrys Parry
|
'These are sober paintings, lean and sparse of fleshy detail. They suggest the possibility of a threshold between living forms and death. This threshold is akin to a landscape wherein to meditate rather than a sharp boundary suggesting an extended passage of time rather than a spontaneous moment.'
|
'In
"When Was Wales?"
, Gwyn A. Williams describes the Welsh as a people who "...have lived by making and remaking themselves in generation after generation, usually against the odds, usually within a British context". These paintings and drawings take their place within that tradition.'
Victoria Mitchell
|
| |
|
"Welsh Black" by Emrys Parry
|
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
'The land has a memory and when age upon age of it's inhabitants lie quietly in the soil, the stones will speak'.
Emrys Parry
|
'The rich fabric of history associated with Llyn and its people are the main influences on my work. Although I have lived in East Anglia for most of my adult life, I have never spiritually left Wales and my work relies heavily on memory and on drawings done on regular visits to my childhood home.
In Llyn tangible evidence of the past can be seen in Iron Age hill forts, sacred stones and Celtic churches on the pilgrim route to Bardsey or Ynys Enlli, thought by some to be Avalon and the burial place of Myrddin Emrys or Merlin.
|
"Signs" by Emrys Parry - from the collection of the National Library of Wales.
|
It is a threshold place where the boundary between this world and another seems very thin. Llyn has a presence that reveals itself through the spirit of place or anima loci, which is experienced more than seen and is the essential personality of a location.
|
Memory, myth and legend are intertwined and woven into the landscape. What we observe as tree, stone, bird or animal can also be seen as players in another, more ancient truth which is on the edge of vision and beyond our normal comprehension. My work attempts to access this other reality.'
Emrys Parry
|
| |
|
|
|
"On the Beach" by Emrys Parry.
This work is now also part of the National Library of Wales collection.
|
| |
|
|
To Contact the Artist:
|
|
|
For further information about Emrys Parry or to purchase any of the works on this website please contact him at:
|
