New exhibitions at Storiel

21 January – 25 March

LAURENCE GANE

disaffection

A collection of phototexts from lockdown 2021 offers some sardonic/ironic/dystopian perspectives on images taken from popular culture, TV and city life. With dark threats to our future and our existence as a species, these images offer symptoms of our predicament.

Laurence Gane has worked in film, photography, theatre, music, philosophy and cultural studies. He was a founding member of the London Filmakers Co-Op.

His bestselling 'Introducing Nietzsche' is now in a 4th edition. 

This collection of phototexts from lockdown 2021 offers some sardonic/ironic/dystopian perspectives on images taken from popular culture, TV and city life.

The development of digital technology has fractured our social relationships, but now appears to be the least of our worries.

Pandemics, war and climate change offer much darker threats to our future and our existence as a species, producing anxiety, sleep loss and the rest. 

These images offer symptoms of our predicament.​​​​​​​

All photos were taken with a smartphone using available light - no digital editing.

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21 January – 25 March

Inspire | Respond

Here are artworks by eighteen different artists from the Bangor University art collection. They represent some of the diverse genre’s of paintings to be found within the collection. From figurative landscapes and portraits to still life and abstract expression, see which of these artworks inspire you.

Young artists have also been invited to be inspired and to respond to this selection of paintings. Their artworks will be exhibited here with these original paintings during the latter half of the exhibition.

Bangor University Art Collection

Bangor University is the custodian of a number of important museum collections formed since the University was established in 1884. The collections are diverse in nature and include fine art. According to an article published by the Times Higher Education in 2005, Bangor University art collection is in the top ten of the best University art collections in the UK, alongside the Barber Institute, Birmingham and the Whitworth Collection, Manchester.

The art collection consists of approximately 650 works dating from the 17th to the 21st centuries. Welsh artists are well represented, including Brenda Chamberlain, David Jones, Edward Povey, Peter Prendergast, Gwilym Pritchard, Ceri Richards, Will Roberts, Evan Walters, Catrin Webster, Claudia Williams and Kyffin Williams. It also includes valuable paintings by British and European artists. Highlights include the William Evans bequest that includes paintings by British artists Paul Nash and Edward Wadsworth and a series of landscape paintings of north Wales by Frederick William Hayes. The collection is a combination of gifts, bequests and purchases. 

The collection creates an important artistic and cultural asset for the University and for the whole of north Wales. Some of the art works are hung in various public spaces within the University buildings where they are enjoyed by staff and students. Guided tours will be scheduled in the spring and autumn.

Brenda Chamberlain  •  A.S.Craig  •  Anthony Goble  •  Frederick Hayes  •  Robert Hunter 

Selwyn Jones  •  David Kinmont  •  Winifred Nicholson  •  Wendy Noel  •  Edward Povey

Thomas Roland Rathmell  •  Brian Rees  •  William Selwyn  •  Andrew Smith

 Edward Wadsworth  •  Acwila Williams  •  Claudia Williams  •  David  Woodford

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YNYSGAIN​​​​​​

This gallery contains a selection of furniture and associated objects from the Storiel Collection and provides an opportunity to view some items from the reserve collection not usually displayed.

The furniture here is predominantly from Ynysgain Uchaf near Cricieth, Dwyfor. The Ynysgain items were left to the museum by Miss Anne Eaden, friend and companion of Miss Dorothea Pughe-Jones, the last of the Jones family to live at Ynysgain. Although the family lived there since 1669, the house is a little older for there is a record of gold hidden in one of the walls in 1646 during the Civil War. 

The pieces are a mixture of traditional oak furniture typical of many farmhouses in the area and exotic pieces influenced by European style. This reflects the wealth of the family and their ability to buy in furniture. Many pieces were commissioned locally using local carpenters to supply their needs.

The collection is significant as the lives of the Jones’ family are bound in this collection and each piece is steeped in tradition and history. From the traditional Welsh dresser to the Bible box from the 1700’s, this collection tells its own story of rural Welsh life through the generations.

Further items of furniture can be seen in the Our Collections gallery and the Life and Work gallery in the museum.

Dorothea Pughe-Jones (Ynysgain) was born in 1875 and graduated from the University of Oxford. She was a gifted writer and wrote a brief History of Wales in 1901, for which she won an Eisteddfod prize. In 1910 she was one of the founders of the Bangor and District Women’s Suffrage Society. She joined the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachments) from 1914-1919, to provide medical assistance during the war, volunteering in France and was later awarded the MBE for her service.

New work by Mfikela Jean Samuel in response to ‘Outlines of the Globe’ by Thomas Pennant ( 1726-1798) 

(gwelir Jpg o un o’r paneli testun i roi cefndir)

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4 February - 15 April

West Africa viewed from Wales

This exhibition has been curated by Dr Ffion Mair Jones of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (CAWCS) in collaboration with Bangor-based artist Mfikela Jean Samuel and Storiel. The association between the two lead figures stems from a workshop arranged to enhance the diversity of contributors to the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, held with the support of the Welsh Government. The exhibition forms part of a project funded by the Wales Innovation Network (WIN), in partnership with the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and explores an account of West Africa produced by Thomas Pennant as part of his unpublished ‘Outlines of the Globe’.

You can learn more about the work of Mfikela Jean Samuel at https://mfikelajeansamuel.org

For more information on Thomas Pennant’s life and work visit https://curioustravellers.ac.uk