DAVID RANDAL DAVIES
David Randal Davies (who also signs his paintings as 'David Randal') is a native of Penclawdd, on the North Gower coast. This village is famous for its women cockle-pickers who for centuries have harvested the wild marshes that border the north side of the village. The village also has an industrial heritage based around the mines that exploited local seams of coal.
He studied at Swansea College of Art and later at Cardiff College of Art where he did post-graduate research into art education, gaining his MA. For over 20 years he was Head of Art at a large South Wales Comprehensive School until 1994. He continued teaching painting for the Extra Mural Department, University College Swansea.
He has had three one-man shows in Swansea and has exhibited widely in England, Wales, London and Berlin. He has won several prizes for his work and has seen his paintings regularly selected, through national competitions, for exhibiting at the Mall Galleries in London. The present exhibition offers a selection of recent work; some images emerging from early, vivid memories of village life such as cockle-pickers, chapels and miners while other works have originated from different places, including Paris, Spain and Egypt.
"My drawings and paintings are mainly about people and their everyday life. They may originate in places as far apart as Penclawdd and Egypt, with much in between. Some images have emerged from early, vivid memories of Penclawdd village life; cockle pickers, chapels, singers, miners and the estuary. The pictures of Egypt are the result of a recent visit to a country I first experienced as a young serviceman.
Whatever the location, however, whatever the subject, whatever the interpretation, highly abstracted or representational, the problem of painting remains. It is one of working with lines, shapes and colours until they show some coherence and, hopefully, become an argument which exists as a 'whole', satisfying in itself."
Prizes
Prize winner NCB National Art Competition
1990
Selected for Singer & Friedlander/ Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition
1991, 1992, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004 at Mall Galleries, London.
Laing Art Competition - selected 1996, 1997, 1998
Prize winner - first Swansea Open Exhibition 1998
Welsh Artist of the Year Exhibition 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003
Essence of Wales 2004
Welsh Drawing Biennale 1997-8, 2000 - 01, 2002 - 3 touring exhibition
The Discerning Eye Competition 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 at Mall Galleries,
London
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Exhibitions
One-man Shows: Attic Gallery 2006, New Gallery, Swansea 1997, 1999. Ceri
Richards Gallery, University College Swansea.
He has also exhibited widely across the UK.