Our first art exhibition of 2023 is now up and looking wonderful.
For our January/February visual treat we have the sensuous & geometric wonders of Huw J. Griffiths. Huw (a.k.a. Griff) is well known amongst the local Lampeter art community having run The Blue Man Gallery in what is now Y Stwdio Brint on the High Street.
The exhibition will run from January 14th until February 24th, 2023.
Here’s a few words from the artist himself:
The Artist: Huw J. Griffiths GSM, BA [Hons]
Born in May 1961, I lived my formative yeas in the Rhondda and moved aged six to Surrey, where I started my ‘real’ education.
From an early age I felt drawn to ‘serve,’ as the adults I knew had. I joined Cubs, the Army Cadets and later at Sixteen, I joined the Army. I felt part of some thing honourable and my path in life certain! Years of experience, The Cold war in Europe, and Northern Ireland left me broken: in body and mind. Everything I had believed suddenly felt ‘wrong. So I left, only to then feel ‘lost’ and in need of a new way. A year of deprograming came from many of the ” Alternative® writers and thinkers of the Sixties and I ‘restarted!
In the early summer of 1986, a chance meeting led me to my first Free Festival, and then the Pilgrimage walk, from London to Stonehenge! These were the first steps to a new life of political actions, Veganism and twenty years on “The Road” as a New Age Traveller.
Over those years the growing number of legal festivals were opening possibilities in many expressive arts. Alongside friends, I started to create my own walkabout theatre characters. The most successful became known as ‘The Blue Man*, a blue-skinned, green mohicaned, Borg-type alien. He is blue, not green – peaceful not violent, and – always walks backwards! The costume took elements of various army uniforms, the ‘Blue Man’s’ – blue skin then exposes him as the opposite of my Army self.
As the Millennium approached it became painfully obvious to my family and friends that something was wrong. I was eventually diagnosed with P.T.S.D and referred to a Charity called ‘Combat Stress.’ I attended and engaged in varied therapies but in Art Therapy I uncovered and re-ignited a passion. My travelling lifestyle changed. I returned to Surrey and although I still lived in my trailer on new-age traveller sites, I had to stay close to my Mother who was quite ill before she passed away.
After losing her I moved to Wales and settled down, put my children into schools, rented a studio and through the continued help of the Combat Stress team, I reached a stage of wellness that enabled me to complete a Fine Art BA(Hons) at Trinity St David in Carmarthen.
Throughout my life, I have always wanted to create. I have always fixed, modelled, drawn or painted whenever possible, even though space, time, family and life events have all limited my output.
Since achieving my B.A. I have continued to run my own studio and several Galleries known as the Blueman Galleries, in Lampeter and its surrounding valleys. The aim of these was to offer exhibition space to new and unknown artists and was a great success, launching several careers. I have ceased to run Galleries now to concentrate on expanding my three main directions in paint!
