Shani Rhys James joins renowned north Wales gallery

Stephen Price

Shani Rhys MBE, one of Wales’ most important living artists, has been welcomed at celebrated Ffin y Parc Gallery, north Wales from today.

Recently relocated to Llandudno, Ffin y Parc is considered a jewel in the crown among Wales’, and indeed the UK’s galleries, offering works from some of the most important artists working in Wales today including Luned Rhys Parri, Meinir Mathias and Elfyn Lewis.

For over forty years Rhys James has been an unwavering voice for a generation of female painters and central to the development and promotion of Welsh contemporary art. 

Rhys James has been awarded numerous prizes including the Jerwood prize in 2003, the National Portrait Award, Mostyn Open, Hunting Prize, the Gold Medal at the National Eisteddfod of Wales and an MBE for services to Welsh art.

Acclaim

Shani Rhys James’ mother was Australian and her father was Welsh, and the family moved to the UK from Australia when Shani was young.

A few years after completing her training at St. Martin’s School of Art, she moved to rural Powys with her husband and young family. She has been living there ever since.

Her work has been attracting attention and wining prizes since the late 1980’s. She won the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod in 1992. In 2003 she won the Jerwood Painting Prize. She was made an MBE in 2006 for services to Art

Her work is found in many major public collections including the national Museum of Wales, The Arts Council of England and Columbia University, New York.

Her work is instantly recognizable. Her figures are almost exclusively women, and she frequently uses aspects of herself.

These unflinching portraits are dramatic, frequently drawing on memories of her mother’s life and career as an actress. The work is intense, uncompromising and psychologically probing.

Her figures inhabit a world filled with domestic trappings: crockery, furniture, wallpaper and extravagant jugs of flowers. Yet her attitude to these surroundings and her role within them is notably ambiguous.

Ralph Sanders from Ffin y Parc said: “Shani’s work is always vigorous and thrilling. It hums and vibrates with suppressed, directed power and the potential for violence and confrontation. But there is vulnerability too. An acknowledgement, perhaps, (though not necessarily an acceptance) of our isolation.

“Her figures are participants and observers at the same time.

“We were followers and admirers of Shani’s work before we even dreamed of opening a gallery. We are therefore very pleased to be welcoming Shani to Ffin y Parc.”

Balance

Speaking to Nation.Cymru previously, Shani shared: “My paintings are about my feelings, what I’m experiencing.

“It isn’t literal it’s more of an essence of a figure, the paint becomes the skin and the abstract marks it makes to define, say, a face are just important.

“So there is a balance between abstract and figuration.”

In 2020, Charleston Trust held a retrospective of her work. Rhys James has also been the focus of many documentaries, including the 2014 BBC show What Do Artists Do All Day and the 2021 The Story of Welsh Art also on BBC.

Her paintings are in such collections as National Museum, Cardiff; National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; Arts Council of England; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Victoria Gallery, Bath; Jerwood Foundation; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. 

Shani Rhys James is currently part of Ffin y Parc’s mixed summer show. Her works can also be viewed online here.