"Over the past twelve months, I have unearthed in my studio, many drawings and paintings from a decade and more ago, and re-worked them. In some there are vestiges of what was there before like palimpsests, and others have become completely new. The message of the work, on the whole, remains the same, although the world has changed." - Iwan Bala, 2025
BALA, Iwan, Dameg ©Iwan Bala
The exhibition titled; ‘Yr hen ddweud o’r newydd yw/ The old telling made new’ consists of around thirty new works created and developed on older works stored in the artist’s studio. They are, in effect ‘palimpsests’, where occasionally the old work informs the new work drawn over it. Often the work is completely different to what it was, but maintains its gift of ‘telling’. One notable work in the exhibition; ‘Dameg. Post-colonialism is a ‘Chimera’ (2025) is a reflection on his realisation that this is so, whilst other works reference the political climate in the USA, UK and the Ukraine and Palestine. Whilst global concerns are expressed, the artist begins his exploration, his ‘field-notes’, from his perspective of Cymru, his own homeland.
BALA, Iwan, Taff Salvage ©Iwan Bala
Most of these works are made on Khadi paper, a sustainably produced cotton rag paper from India, that takes its name from the home spun cotton clothing that symbolised the de-colonisation of India, worn by Ghandi and later Nehru. The exhibition also contains works on loan from the public collections of The National Library of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales, which are not often on public display.
The exhibition has been made possible through CELF, an initiative to share collections held by public institutions in Wales to a wider audience. These works by Bala, from the 1990s to today, show the consistency and continuity of his ‘telling’ over his career.
To find out more, please head to the Storiel website.
