Hilary Bryanston
South Wales Artist
Hilary Bryanston is a visual artist working with painting, stone carving, ceramics & assemblage.
I see the function of Art as a way of enhancing our environment.
My own artwork is domestic in scale & has decorative elements. As a result, it fits well into a house or garden setting. I also paint furniture as well as canvas.
I feel the Art is not something that can be forced or taken. It has to flow naturally from a familiarity with it's inner language together with the limitations imposed by the use of different materials.
The Protective Square
Oil on Canvas
The story of how a painting came into existence
One day, I noticed an odd shape on the palm of my right hand.
It was roughly square - about 1/2" x 1/2" and also subdivided into four smaller squares.
My father used to read our palms when I was a child. I looked up the shape in one of his old books on palmistry - 'The Protective Square' is what it said. You have a protective square.
Beginnings
Hilary Bryanston lives and works near Pontardawe in South West Wales.
She has been painting and drawing virtually since she was born. She went to study Art full time at a foundation art course in Solihull from 1968 to 1970. After this she attended Newport College of Art and Design from 1970 to 1973 and obtained a diploma in Fine Art and Complementary Studies (Diploma in Art and Design). Among her tutors were Jack Crabtree, Monty Seroto, Keith Richardson Jones (popularly known as KRJ), Keith Armatt and Anthony Stevens.
This qualification is now equivalent to a degree. 1973 was the last year of the Dip AD.
She then went on to study full time for a year at Cardiff doing an Art Teacher's Certificate Course. However, it became quickly apparent that she did not feel comfortable in the school environment and by 1976 she was teaching adult education classes in London.
She discovered stone carving and wood carving when she was in her thirties and living in Birmingham. The Midlands Art Centre offered excellent courses in these subjects as it had an ethos based around the Arts and Crafts principles of creating by hand.
Hilary Bryanston outside Oriel Bach, at Oriel Q, Narberth with her exhibition 'The Shape of Sound', in early 2020 before the gallery moved to Market Street, Narberth.
Latest News
Exhibition - Cave Days
March-April 2024 - Oriel Bevan Jones Gallery, Carmarthen
A solo exhibition, Cave Days, will be hosted at the Oriel Bevan Jones Gallery, Carmarthen, from 12th March to the 20th April 2024.
Publication
Dancers of the Mind
Hilary Bryanston's painting of a unicorn is used as the front cover illustration of the forthcoming poetry retrospective 'Dancers of the Mind' by Grey Wolf.
Dancers of the Mind will be published by Purple Unicorn Media in late 2024.
