Anthony Stokes

Far removed from The Valleys' gloomy, grimy stereotype, Stokes' work revels in a beauty found in the clutter of street corners, the colour-saturated sheds and garages, the debris left by abandoned industry with its patina of rust, and the scarred hillsides - once dumps for slag and waste. It also looks at customisations of shops and houses, at the sheen of metal parked along contour-hugging terraces, with do-it-yourself deployed as a means of personal expression, and at brand-new developments.

Anthony Stokes' impartial gaze gives us a remarkable portrait of a complex and distinctive community.

Born in Malvern, Anthony Stokes studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Bath Academy, Corsham from 1965 until 1969 and has a degree in Visual Communication. As a pre-diploma student he exhibited with the Concrete Poets of the West Country; at Bath Academy, Corsham, he studied under Michael Craig-Martin. In 1969-72, with Jeremy Rees, he organized the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation’s City Sculpture Project in eight cities in the UK. Appointed director of Garage in London in 1973, he then formed a gallery in his own name which continued until the mid ‘eighties. He became a freelance exhibitions organiser working for Tate, Serpentine Gallery, Arts Council of England, British Council, and was a visiting lecturer at the sculpture school Royal College of Art, appointed to initiate its PhD programmes. From 1988-90 he was manager of Edward Totah Gallery, London, and then became director of Todd Gallery, London, until 2000.

He moved from London to South Wales in 2001 and began to make photographs leading to the touring exhibition ‘The Valleys’, with financial support from Arts Council Wales, and the book of the same title, with an introduction by Iain Sinclair (Seren 2007). ‘Bridgend Pictures’ was his next project, exhibiting photographs in impromptu places in the borough, again with Arts Council Wales support, 2010, and ongoing. He received the photography award at the Welsh Artist of the Year in 2008 and exhibited at the National Eisteddfod, Cardiff, in the same year. In 2014, he exhibited at the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli. In 2015, he accepted an invitation to exhibit in The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

In 2013, with Jacqueline Poncelet, he initiated the project ‘Bryn Ogwr’, an informal collaboration, which was first exhibited in March 2014 at Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Carmarthen, curated by Meg Anthony and with support from Arts Council Wales. In a revised and updated form Bryn Ogwr was presented again at Plas Glyn y Weddw, Gwynedd in the spring of 2015.

A comprehensive exhibition entitled ‘more from The Valleys’ was presented at ffotogalerie y gofeb, Machynlleth in 2018.

This year he is also exhibiting at the National Eisteddfod, Pontypridd and at Oriel y Bont, University of Wales, Treforest in an exhibition with working title ‘A Calm Revolt’.

Anthony Stokes is represented in the collections of The National Portrait Gallery, London, National Library of Wales, National Museum Wales and the University of Glamorgan.