Documenting Wales: Luned Rhys Parri returns with most potent work to date

Stephen Price

Luned Rhys Parri has released a series of new dioramas as part of one of Wales’ most highly anticipated exhibitions this year, including some of her most political and important works to date.

With work held in collections at the National Library of Wales and CADW, Luned Rhys Parri is fast gaining recognition as one of Wales’ most celebrated and original artists.

Working from her studio in Groeslon, Gwynedd, her exciting pieces in mixed media and papier-mâché which document Wales in unique fashion have found themselves in national collections, and the homes of collectors across Wales and the world.

Rhys Parri’s celebrated dioramas literally step out of the frame in a riotous burst of joy that feels at once both of the moment and proudly nostalgic.

A former pupil of the late Peter Prendergast, Luned’s bold works have consistently sold out at previous shows at Ffin y Parc and Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw.

Humour

Luned’s characters often inhabit a vanishing Wales, offering a chance to double-take and re-evaluate the overlooked beauty and humour in our elders, our furniture, our fashions, our crumbling buildings.

The ordinary is uplifted and celebrated in her work, as are the unsung heroes of our communities or the everyday people who show up to protest, demanding ‘chwarae teg’ for Wales, its people, its resources.

Chapel scenes, school scenes, and trips to the shops sit aside the same ordinary Welsh people at protests for Tryweryn, for Palestine, for the right to exist. There’s much to dissect in each piece, and so much potency, and it’s unsurprising that Luned chose this boundless, expressive medium.

Subversive, playful, and undeniably important. This is an artist at the top of their game, and one only Wales could have made.

Documenting Wales’ today and yesterday has never looked such ‘hwyl’.

Luned’s latest works – a mammoth series of 20 – are set to be exhibited at Ffin y Parc Gallery, Llandudno from 4 July, and Nation.Cymru was lucky enough to get a glimpse of some of her creations in advance.

We caught up with her for a brief chat about the exhibition and the inspirations behind her most recent work.

Your work is unmistakably of your hand. What would you say inspires you to create in the way you do?

Old photographs and newspapers, vintage “finds” of all kinds, and life in Wales both past and present.

Creating such tangible art which, as you mention, is often based on real people must take a great deal of time, effort and emotion. Because of this, do you find it hard to let some pieces go?

I have no space to display my artworks, and don’t have the option of keeping and enjoying them, whereas those who buy a work of mine usually have a particular place at home where they want to display it.

I feel so honoured and appreciative that such people enjoy my creations.

What, if anything, do you hope your art achieves?

I hope my work will eventually speak to a wider audience than just the fortunate few of us who are still able to live and work in our country.

Could this exhibition possibly remind exiles, as well as survivors, of our common history and the past struggles which have made us what we are today?

Some people might learn a little about our way of life, as it is today and as it was in the recent past.

I also hope to make people think about recycling. Not only the recycling of fabrics, scraps of newsprint, etc, but also the recycling of old ideas, fashions and assumptions which might still have interest and validity today.

Above all, I hope to make viewers of my work smile occasionally.

These are some of your most potent works, with protest a running theme – was it was your intent to be more political on a global level perhaps this time around?

I am particularly fond of ‘Merched dros heddwch’ which was created in response to watching Angharad Price give a passionate speech during a gathering for peace in Gaza which was held in Caernarfon.

Your work is so uniquely yours, and you’ve become a leading figure in Welsh arts – did you expect this with the medium you use, or was it a surprise?

My artwork is changing very gradually because of the nature of the very slow techniques that I use. It is always a struggle to make a living as an artist in Wales and I often have to make work that I hope will sell in a gallery, and occasionally loose confidence in my ideas.

I am tremendously lucky in the fact that Ffin Y Parc respect my themes and support my more political work and I think that my pieces are becoming more adventurous because of Ffin Y Parcs’ encouragement.

I started making work from card, paper and other found materials around 30 years ago due to lack of money, although I have found that there is an attraction to art made of rubbish all over the world.

I don’t really feel that I am a leading figure in Welsh arts, although quite a lot of people are collectors of my work, maybe the materials that I use add to the uniqueness of each piece?

There’s a real joy to so many of these pieces, and a nostalgia too, has anything in particular inspired the subjects chosen?

Many of the artworks are based on photographs by Geoff Charles, who took pictures of thousands of Welsh people, including members of my family in the 1960’s.

However, after such a long period working in my home studio, whilst looking after my children and then during the pandemic, I have recently been working a lot from photos taken with my phone in Caernarfon, where I was recently ‘artist in residence’ for short periods in the community hub Porthi Dre and with Carn Cymunedol.

This has been a worthwhile and enriching time for me as an artist and I have enjoyed meeting a variety of people in the community.

Your works are in some pretty prestigious places, and you’ve got collectors across the world, how does it feel to see them fly so far, or to gain so many viewers in museums? Again, a form of quiet protest and sowing seeds, raising the profile of Wales, and many of the events that have helped shape us

Some of my artworks are in collections in Galicia, The Basque country and Patagonia, and this is a real honour.

I do feel that it is important for us to make links with other countries who speak minority languages, but it has become more difficult to do this in Europe, because of Brexit.

This is a show with two other artists I really admire, and three very different female voices, were you pleased when you knew the plan? And have you seen how it all works together?

It is great to be showing alongside two renowned female artists in Ffin Y Parc.

The three of us create such different styles of work. I admire both Sarah and Kate very much, and am privileged to be exhibiting with them in this wonderful building in Llandudno.

Luned’s new works are available to view and purchase online now, or you can see them in person at Ffin y Parc from 4 July.