Poem: The Painter Iwan Gwyn Parry (1970 – 2025)

Tony Curtis 

At the end, they had you on a drip.
Lover of fancy meals, gourmet talker-up of good food.
Which you secretly threw up.

Rachub – translates as a “safe place” –
But your village sounds like it’s racked and ribbed in extremis
With you starving there in the unforgiving weather and hard slate.
A long-gone marriage and two distant daughters.

Friends and colleagues and rapt, loyal students
Were not enough, and we are all bereft,
Lost in our helplessness to save you from yourself.

Always our dandy in the north –
Barbour International, Donegal tweeds,
Fine tan leather boots, polished, too good for trekking.
That silk-necktie noosed around your gaunt throat.

Our friend, your mentor, Peter, claimed he could,
On a rare cloud-free, clear day see the Wicklow Mountains
From his Deiniolen studio. His passing hit you hard.

Your views and angles were always liminal –
The cliffs facing west on Ynys Môn jagged above the waves,
Edging the Irish Sea, its depths of green and yellow and blues,
The Ferry a stroke of white, small and resolute,
Somewhere in the middle of its journey.

Or low wetlands arcing to the west, never a soul in sight,
The flats of mud and grass with spiked stakes marking out the way.
An overview of a refinery, a factory, as if you were flying over,
Not taking the boat from Holyhead.
It was all on the edge of Wales and the known world.

You were always going beyond, chasing
The infinite perspective lines of your shrinking self.

The last exhibition was large and light and full of energy.
And your paintings, the new ones, were visionary
Bright, vibrant imagined skies. A painter’s heaven.

That opening night, Cardiff was awash under Storm Amy,
The roads were rivers, the lights smeared,
So, there was never going to be a big crowd.
But you worked the gallery room, polite, laughing,
Your cheek bones sharp and frail; you were
Belsen-boned when Margaret hugged you.

I sent you an email, congratulating you on the work.
Seven years dry, feeling stronger, you claimed to see –
The way ahead to greater things, I can begin
To relax with this searching, and enjoy the exploration,
This archaeological study into myself and image-making.
I can return to my easel again
I’ve missed its tranquillity.
Up-beat, with new promise and purpose,
You were keeping up the show.
But your pained soul, your spent body
Just said, “No.”

—

We met Iwan more than thirty years ago when he and his friend Darren Hughes showed work in Cardiff. We have lived with his paintings in our home ever since. Iwan exhibited steadily in London, Cardiff, Dublin and Llandudno and is represented in major collections. Work can be viewed online at the following galleries:

Llandudno Ffin y Parc

Celf, Cardiff

Dublin, Doorway Gallery

London, Thackeray Gallery

His tv appearances include “Blas o…Adre / Arlunio Gyda Iwan Gwyn Parry” – S4C and YouTube.

Iwan was mentored by, then taught with, Peter Prendergast at Coleg Menai. Poems about them, “Quartet for Two Painters” were included in my “From the Fortunate Isles” (Seren, 2016).

There was also his S4C commissioned portrait of rugby player Robbie McBride filmed in 2020, “Cymru ar Gynfas”, which is still accessible online. Artist and sportsman clearly got on well. The contrast between the burly Wales International and the frail artist is particularly poignant.

In 2023 Iwan presented himself to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s Specialist Adult Eating Disorders Service and went on their website to discuss his health challenges.

Iwan died in December 2025.