Seán Vicary

Seán Vicary

I’m an artist based in West Wales working across moving image, animation and digital media. My practice explores ideas at the heart of our relationship with place, landscape and what we think of as the ‘natural’ world.

I’ve exhibited regularly at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, winning the Design and Craft prize in 2011 and the Ifor Davies Award in 2016. My films have been broadcast in the UK and screened internationally. Recent commissions have involved an Art/Science collaboration with the Wellcome Trust, a tower-block size projection for Adelaide Festival and a deep-mapping project for Literary Atlas Wales. I was a recipient of a 2017 Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales; developing practice-based research that examined contemporary manifestations of Genii Loci and questioned our human-centric viewpoint in a time of anthropogenic climate change and mass extinction.

WHAT YOU LIKE ABOUT ORIEL DAVIES

Growing up on the Powys/ Shropshire border was a formative experience, the rural landscape and culture helped shape my world view and still informs my current art practice. My relationship with Oriel Davies was a part of this, beginning when the gallery was still based in Welshpool and called Oriel 31. My Dad, a printmaker, was a regular exhibitor so I often accompanied him to exhibitions & openings. As an art student in the 1980’s and later as a nascent artist, Oriel Davies provided me with essential access to contemporary art; acting as a nexus for the creative community across Mid Wales and into West Shropshire.

I joined the board in 2015 and I’m very excited to see the gallery working with a new generation of emerging artists, helping to support their practice and engage fresh audiences.

A FAVOURITE CULTURAL ARTIFACT

Nagasaki Nightmare – Crass

7” vinyl single, 1981

If landscape provided the optics through which I first tried to understand my surroundings, then the soundtrack was defiantly anarcho-punk.

I bought this 7” vinyl in February 1981 from Durrants records in Shrewsbury; a double A-side brimming with anger and ideas, wrapped in a fold out poster sleeve designed by artist Gee Vaucher with an accompanying hand screen-printed patch.

Seeing Crass play live in the early 80’s was a multi-media experience of music, film, poetry and radical politics. This was a revelation to me, a true do-it-yourself aesthetic ran through everything they did: stencil your own t-shirts, write your own fanzines and organise your own gigs. I have been channeling that DIY punk spirit ever since.