DYS PH ASI A

 “In this exhibition I have selected recent works that consider the differences

between intended meanings and interpretations. This is a continuing exploration 

of poetic landscapes, both real and imagined, searching for common-ground for 

writing and visual art to cohabit.” - from Artist's Statement

ARTIST'S TALK on Wednesday 10 January 2018 at 17:30

Remy Dean : Dysphasia : Partial List of Works 


‘Land Poems’ (2017)

Digital prints made with a photographic process using colours sampled from landscape. Compositions are guided by the interaction of lines using poetic rhythm and metre. Although the 'poems' are linear in structure, they may be ‘read’ in multiple directions, beginning from any square. It was my intention to capture the essence of the land through its colours and transient moods. My initial approach to this photography series was informed by the famous ‘lozenge’ paintings of Piet Mondrian.

This set of 'Land Poems' was produced as part of this year’s Creative Residency at Plas Tan y Bwlch, the Snowdonia National Park Authority's Environmental Study Centre, in Maentwrog, Wales.


‘Writing to Escape…’ (2015 – 2017)

Ongoing series of prints resulting from written drawings of visual and narrative stimuli. Expressing emotions whilst avoiding the deliberate formation of words and so, perhaps, circumventing the cultural dogmas often attached to words and languages. One perceptive viewer described this as, "a tiny form of dance, recorded visually". Precedent for this kind of approach can be found in the calligraphic scroll paintings of China and Japan, and in the modern works of Joan Miró, Cy Twombly, Franz Kline, Hans Hartung, and others…


‘The Stars, at Our Feet’ (2016)

iron : leaves its mark upon the slate in nebulae of rust in a starscape of tiny pits and scratches left by the footsteps of quarriers. The slate, once above their heads, now at their feet, reflecting the infinite night above. Ancient mineral memories… of the blood, of the land, of the stars : iron

The poetic image of slate miners returning to their barracks on a rare, clear night, their heavy work-boots splashing in the puddles, mixing the reflection of the stars with their own. This and the recent classification of the Snowdonia National Park as a Dark Skies Reserve were the seeds for this series of photographs, its title suggested by an old poem by an anonymous Cwmorthin miner. Produced as part of my 2016 Residency at Plas Tan y Bwlch.

You can read an article about The Stars, at Our Feet in EGO Magazine HERE


‘Cicorc Conwy’ (2015 – 2017)

Before setting off on longer than usual voyages, sailors would have ‘one’ last drink in their local pub before embarkation onto their ships and boats. They would enjoy a favourite tipple, smoke a pipe and sometimes they would make a small model dog with corks and match-sticks. These tiny cork companions would travel with them to distant ports in exotic far-off lands and upon their safe return would be gifted to their children. A limited edition, hand-made series of these objet-avec-courte-histoire will be available for adoption, each with accompanying information and story booklet.

‘The Questing Beats Back-Catalogue’ (2017)

A selection of re-issue CD covers from obscure, or non-existent, bands signed to the legendary 1980s art-rock/alt-punk label based in Stoke-on-Trent.


‘Sugar Rush’ (2015 - 2017)

A series of objects, photographs and information commenting on the shaping of the local landscape and culture... taken with a spoonful of sugar. From sugar and slaves… to sheep and slate…

'#Moelwyns' (ongoing, since 2007)

Selected prints from the series of photographs documenting my attempt to capture the ever-changing moods of  the Mynyddau Moelwynion mountain range, the transient atmospheric conditions that only people who are lucky enough to live here, in Snowdonia, really get to know. I see the Moelwyns and walk their slopes almost every day of the year... They remain the same, yet continually change. They never get old. To keep up with this series on twitter, click here.


'Illustrations for THIS' (2017)

Illustrations for the forthcoming illustrated edition of This, by Remy Dean with Zel Cariad, Book One of the This, That and the Other trilogy - imaginative fantasy, on an epic scale. The story follows the special friendship between two girls who embark on a magical adventure together, across the three realms. It is a modern fable inspired by Welsh fairy tales and folklore, in the tradition of The Neverending Story, The Box of Delights, The Chronicles of Narnia… This is published by The Red Sparrow Press

Same Plas, Another Time...

The current exhibition in the Stable Block at Plas Tan y Bwlch, Maentwrog, includes a selection of my responses to the Creative Residencies I have undertaken there. More related works will be shown later this year, in a solo exhibition at the Canolfan Maenofferen Centre, in nearby Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Remy Dean talking about his art at Plas Tan y Bwlch, part of the Gwynedd Helfa Gelf 2017 Arts Festival 
(photographs © Kim Vertue)

You can read  more about these Residencies HERE

Mysterious Messages from Briony O Clarke

Wooden Boulder, the ground-breaking landscape ‘drawing’ by David Nash recorded a journey from the mountain slopes above Maentwrog, down into the river Dwyryd that finally carried the hunk of wood out to sea via the tidal estuary at Portmeirion. As it went its leisurely way, drawing a line through space-time, it recorded the rainfall run-off in the tributaries it travelled.

Spheres and more in the temporary artist's studio of Briony O Clarke...

It has been fifty years since The Prisoner was filmed at Portmeirion. Patrick McGoohan, as Number Six, was chased across the sandy expanse of the estuary at low tide by a wobbly white orb known as ‘Rover’. Perfect white orbs feature in the work of Briony O Clarke, who is in the final year of her low-key residency as the Village Artist. I visited in 2014, when she explained her desire to work with the land, how she wanted to devise a way to produce drawings from the swell of the sea. Last week, I was back at the historic holiday resort and popular tourist attraction to see how it has all developed. What I found was a piece of art that rivals Nash’s ‘Boulder’ for innovation and invention in the field of landscape art.

Briony O Clarke took up residence in 'Number Two's Dome'

Drawing upon her recent research experiences in Oslo, where she worked with the University’s Department of Informatics, Clarke has produced art that merges the mystical folklore of tide and time with information technology and digital data collection. In one corner of her temporary studio, situated in ‘Number Two’s Dome’, she has built the Scrying Pool, a continuous vortex of water contained within a black Perspex bowl. The swirling mini-whirlpool distorts its surroundings in ever-changing rippling reflections. It is an elegant installation that recalls the 1960s lava-lamp Rover nursery that could be seen in the circular Village Control Room. It is also part of a printing process that Clarke has developed from the ancient art of Japanese Suminagashi, where hand-ground pigments and clear oils are floated on the surface of water. Instead of laying paper onto a still surface, pages are carefully introduced into the flow, taking prints from the fluid patterns.

Scrying Pool and the Sea Fax

The culmination of Clarke’s four-year residency is Sea Fax a machine that allows the sea to send us messages of its beauty. A buoy, far out in the Atlantic, measures the levels of the tide and the rhythm of the waves, wirelessly sending this data to Clarke’s contraption, which reminds me of 2001’s Monolith, having a lie down.

Is it a modernist monument, or an understated tomb marker? A pool of water contained within this pure black, table-sized rectangle, is mechanically set in motion to reproduce the conditions out at sea from the live data it is receiving. Clarke then uses pigments ground from locally sourced stones, slate, granite and marble, to produce prints in the Suminagashi tradition. Miraculously, these automatic drawings, transmitted from the sea, often resemble the most beautiful and elegant watercolour landscapes of zen painters. The sea sends us pictures, drawn with the land itself.

Gently. Carefully. Mysteriously.

Two delicate drawings made by Briony O Clarke's Sea Fax

read a short interview with Briony O Clarke at the Portmeirion website

Getting To The Point - an interview with Trent Reznor

FROM THE REMY DEAN ARCHIVE : 1991

With Trent Reznor making a guest appearance in the new Twin Peaks series, and a new Nine Inch Nails album recently announced, I am reminded about meeting him for an interview, early in both our careers… So here it is, dug out from my clippings archive - a snapshot of music history from 26 years ago! The music scene back then seemed very vital and there were always interesting and surprising stories behind the bands… this interview is no exception. [NOT edited for language.]

NOT THE HAPPIEST GUY IN THE WORLD... 

Nine Inch Nails are surprising, deceptive and dangerous. The image evoked by the name comes pretty close to summing up their sound: hard, metallic and with a point. They have already caused quite a stir with the alternative charts, heavy metal audiences, MTv, the FBI, and whilst on their debut tour over here, the British police. Why?

Musically, main man Trent Reznor has used his Nine Inch Nails to knock together industrial dancecore, traditional pop and metal in such a vital manner that the barrier between the usual cult status afforded such bands and the mainstream has been punctured. The debut LP, Pretty Hate Machine, broke the ground and achieved major crossover success, but rather than planting easy-grow pop seeds and waiting for commercial chart success to blossom, the follow-up album, Fixed, is a much harder, uglier and intense crop of songs, exploring the darker corners of sound and self. When asked of his major influences, he has an off-pat reply: "Ministry for aggression, XTC for song writing, Severed Heads for production... and I like Prince a lot."

Pretty Hate Machine sold something like 500,000 copies and spawned three top-five alternative-chart singles in the USA. Their live debut in the UK was before an audience of 85,000 at Wembley, and the first single, Head Like A Hole, got quite a grip on the mainstream charts here.

The Nine Inch Nails live phenomena is intimate, aggressive and often truly dangerous. More than once, the shows have ended with injury to the band, the audience, and most certainly the hardware. As I am shown up to Mr Reznor's hotel suite, I hear that another journalist has cancelled as he is considering pressing assault charges against Trent for injuries sustained at the gig the night before ... What have I got myself into?

Today, however, Trent Reznor is in apathy mode, stretched out on the sofa, yawning...

So, what's all this about assaulting my fellow journalists?

"He was very upset, and considering pressing charges, because he got hit in the head with a bottle of water and got a black eye… which is bullshit because we don't throw bottles of water on stage.

"Our live show has gotten a lot more aggressive than the records. My whole idea of a performance is to take it beyond just being a band on stage... We try to be more interactive. I've noticed in our shows, when they get more chaotic, people like it. And the more element of danger to the audience - not that we're gonna attack them or kill them - then there's real interest being inspired and their attention is focussed. The music excites them and the energy released is not as safe as being in your seat 500 yards away. It’s interaction. That's why we like playing clubs."

So, what was it like opening for Guns'n'Roses to a stadium audience?

"It was what I'd expected, and worse. Axl's a friend of mine, we met in LA when he came to the show and asked if we wanted to open for them on some dates in America... we couldn't do it, but as we were planning on coming over here, we thought what better and stranger way to do it than supporting the biggest rock band in the world?"

Was there any worry about the somewhat dubious, even juvenile, image of Guns'n'Roses rubbing off - onto NIN?

"They are that and more. They're a big fucking dangerous live rock band! That's what they do and they do it well, with all the trappings right down to the drum solo. For what it is, they do it better than anyone else.

"I don't care if people want to think we’re cock rock... and another reason for doing it was the strangeness of a synth act being on that bill."

We know NIN aren't cock rock. What does Trent think they are about?

"When I wrote the record, Pretty Hate Machine, I thought, 'What would be my reason for having a band? What can I say musically or lyrically?' I was looking inward and made some very personal songs that were about how I felt about certain things. The motivation was more dissatisfaction rather than, 'I'm the happiest guy in the world, let's write an album!'

"The theme of the record revealed itself to be things that were really bothering me: not having my religious outlook together, not being able to fit neatly into a little hole in society, trouble dealing with people on a one-to-one basis. Nothing staggeringly new, teenage angst, but trying to do it with some sincerity - a kind of questioning examination.

"I'd like to break down all these stereotypes and ideas that if you're in a band, you put out a record, hopefully once a year, and then you go on tour, and then do an album, make a video and repeat the process until you have nothing else to say and die out."

Videos for Nine Inch Nails have already stirred strong reactions. How far do they represent the NIN vibe?

"I don't like videos, really... what could have been a cool art form turned out to be nothing but corporate commercials for a record, and it's to the point now where a lot of bands, us included, have to justify spending quite a sizable amount of money to make a video. To make it the way you want to make it, you get such strict censorship problems...

"We couldn't show Down In It to begin with because of me laying dead on the ground - that may imply suicide... Head Like A Hole couldn't be shown because it was 'too disturbing' - what the fuck does that mean? So, I spent X amount of money - it cost almost as much to make as my album did - for a video that no-one gets to see because this fucking station won’t play it."

"What I'd like to do is work in a totally different format. So, for the next album, there are no videos - I'll make a film that's 45 minutes or an hour long, and sell that to stores, and that's the visual accompaniment - that's the way you get to see Nine Inch Nails, and it's a little more elite and a little more special."

Like any band that criticises the capitalist commercialism of the record industry, how can Reznor justify his position as a product that has to sell to remain in existence? Surely there must have been many compromises.

"The record business had always been a closed door to me. Now it's open, all the fucking scum has come out and surrounded me, embraced me. I thought, naively, that people put out records because they liked music... but it's not about art, it's not about music, it’s about fucking product, and ripping people off and marketing schemes and formulas. So what I'm trying to do is create an environment where I'm toying with accessibility. I like to hear, ‘Well MTv wants to play it, but you have to edit that second out of the video' - make them squirm a bit. Not that they'd go out of business if they didn't play Nine Inch Nails, but the only way I can change a system I really hate - like MTv's formatting… such as top 40 radio - is not to comply with it.

"They want millions of record sales and I want to put out music that has some integrity to it. Because I tried to do that, I think that's why we got to where we are now, but they don't see it like that. They see it like, 'you sold 480,000 you could sell four million - we’ve gotta smooth things off, and do a video with some girls in, let's get some fucking cars in that video... might as well change the lyrics cos they're a little ugly, let’s take those guitars out of the chorus…' - what’s left? That side has been the most disheartening, seeing the control being taken away."

A knock on the door interrupts us at this point.

Apparently, the police are on their way up and we are advised to hide-out in another suite to complete the interview. I follow the swearing Reznor along the corridor and into his manager's room where he falls back onto another couch...

This is not his first brush with the law. He was once involved in an FBI murder inquiry. Where he was the... victim! …what? So, rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated?

"We were doing a bunch of stuff lowering Super-8 cameras off buildings," he explains, "The theme of the video, very obliquely, was suicide. The track was Down In It - which wasn't about suicide at all, but if you juxtapose that idea onto the song, it makes sense, almost in a crucifixion kinda death scene. That was the idea, but it became so oblique you would never know that, unless I told you.

"There was this scene, where I'm lying on the ground with corn starch on me so I look like I'm dead... and we tied a camera to a weather balloon filled with helium, and attached some strings so you could start the camera, let it go, and then pull it back down. So when the film was reversed, it looked like the camera was dropping down onto my head. But the strings broke and the thing just took off! We were doing some stuff at the top of this building, so we ran up... but by the time we got to the roof, you could just barely see it on the horizon... it was gone! I remember saying, 'Hey, I hope that doesn't fall and hit someone on the head... it could absolutely kill someone…' and never thought any more about it.

"About a year later, John [manager] came and said, 'You will not believe this, but I just got a call from the FBI...' This thing went 200 miles, landed in some farmer's field. He found it and, thinking it was some kind of marijuana surveillance camera - a ridiculous thing to think - took it to the police. The police developed the film and... they saw me laying 'dead'. Also on that reel, there was some stop-frame animation that didn't work very well - it was at night and it turned out really awful-looking, and they thought it was some kind of snuff film with a clue a murder - I was dead and you could see these other people walking away...

"They tracked it down to Chicago. Chicago police went round art schools, then realised it was a video for a rock band... I thought that was funny... It looks like we set up a dumb publicity stunt, but it wasn’t at all. It was just a fuck-up. When I heard what had happened to that camera it was, like Jesus Christ! Couldn't believe it!"

Trent is losing the apathy and getting restless...

There are sounds outside the door. I decide to round off the meeting before a police raid does it for us. So, to what does he attribute the 'surprise' success of that first album?

"I think it's a good album, but didn't realise it had the accessibility it seems to have. That may be attributed to the fact that I am conscious of writing songs in the traditional sense. I am concerned about melody, choruses and hooks, things like that. I think that gives us an edge that the other bands we tend to get lumped-in with don't give as much attention to. Which is not good or bad, just different and maybe gives us more pop appeal. Again, I hope to retain some amount of accessibility, but I wouldn't look for a top 40 single, that's not where we’re heading.

''I'm just concerned with doing the music as well as it can be done. I don't know if we're ever going to go up in mainstream popularity from where we are now, because I know - what my new music sounds like!"

And so, I wish him luck with the law and quickly make my exit.

As it turned out, the charges were dropped and he was able to fly back to his new home in New Orleans, delayed only when the plane he was on made a forced landing because part of the cockpit window blew-in during flight...

Trent Reznor is the kind of guy things happen to ...and Nine Inch Nails are definitely happening.

This interview with Trent Reznor was conducted during the first UK tour for Nine Inch Nails, back in 1991. A snippet first appeared in Outlook Magazine, and Crumblin’ Rock later published the full version you have just read here.

The meeting provided solid grounding for research towards my 1995 book on the origins and influences of Nine Inch Nails (ISBN: 978-1886894259).

This Must Be The Plas...

Helfa Gelf is now an annual event - an Arts Trail through North Wales during September that involves hundreds of artists, crafters - creatives of all kinds - in an exciting and varied festival of events. Many creatives open the doors of their studios to the public, presenting an opportunity to interact and share their creative practices. The open studios season is during September and is also preceded - and then followed by - a programme of exhibitions, workshops and courses for creative professionals, interested novices, and all those between. Helfa Gelf presents a unique opportunity to meet and chat with artists, makers and doers in their creative spaces, see them at work, perhaps have a go yourself, and see their finished work - which is often available to purchase at special 'trade prices' - ideal if you want to get some unique Yuletide shopping sorted ahead of the rush...

This year, I will be at Plas Tan y Bwlch for the Helfa Gelf festival, picking-up on the Residency that I began there last year...

There will be readings from my books, 'pop-up' exhibitions of photography and other visual responses, and plenty of chat about art and folklore. Work produced during my 2016 Residency will be on show and I will also host free 'drop-in' creative workshops, and 'taster sessions' from the forthcoming Creative Writing Course: A Sense of Space, to be hosted at Plas Tan y Bwlch in March 2018.

For more info, dates and times, see my Helfa Gelf Artist's Profile Page (click images below) and while you are there, have a good look around their website at all the many and varied artists that will be welcoming you into their work spaces throughout September 2017...

Click here to read about the  Helfa Gelf 2015 Residency that I took part in 

at 'Haus of Helfa' aka 'The Tedder House' in Llandudno...

diolch yn fawr IAWN

For the past month, I have been coordinating IAWN = Independent Authors of Wales Network.

Helping to set-up IAWN was a learning experience and I have gained much more insight into the mechanics of crowdfunding and also just how varied the literary scene in Wales is! I have had the good fortune to meet and interview a small 'handful' of the more interesting authors with cultural connections to Wales. You can read some of these short(ish) interviews on the IAWN Weblog now:

• Andrew Jenkin
• Chloe Hammond
• David Williams
• Frank Collins
• Sonja Benskin Mesher
• Thorne Moore

IAWN will next become the Integrated Arts & Writing Nexus

[click IAWN logo to find out more]

2016 Looking Back and Looking Forward 2017

ALL the very BEST for the New Year 
...and hoping 2017 is better in every way!

WORKS ON SHOW...

2016 was ushered in by my solo exhibition Entropy/Extropy at Oriel Maenofferen Gallery, with other works simultaneously on show as part of the In-Sight 7 Exhibition, at Oriel Mostyn Gallery, and then Oriel Ynys Môn Museum and Gallery. The work was mainly lens-based, with a peppering of drawings and print-work. A couple of works were included in the 'Send Us A Postcard' open exhibition at Storiel Museum and Gallery, Bangor, including a charming cicorc named 'Charter'.

'Charter', the cicorc on exhibition at Storiel Museum and Gallery, Bangor

I enjoyed a Creative Residency at Plas Tan y Bwlch during September, in which I immersed myself in the locale and its myth-rich past, resulting in three, linked articles on the associated legends and folklore:

Welsh Folklore: Significance of the Maentwrog Standing Stone

Black Arts and Talismans: Huw Llwyd, the Real Welsh Wizard

Folk-Ore: The Magical Power of Blacksmiths and Their Enduring Stories

You can scroll down to read my blog posts from the Residency. I also hosted a few writing workshops and performed several preview readings from my new epic fairy-tale fantasy novel THIS (part one). Visual responses inspired by the research undertaken as part of the Residency are to be exhibited in the Stable Block Gallery this spring.

Bones of the Land (i) from the series, A Poetic Exploration of Cwmorthin

As 2016 drew to a close, some more cicorcs were on show at Galeri Betws y Coed as part of the Helfa Gelf Local Artists Selection, and remain on display in the boutique there. To ‘book-end’ the year, the In-Sight 10 Exhibition, at Oriel Mostyn Gallery, included seven of my drawings and prints (continues until the end of January).

oh, yes... and THIS happened:

Four-years-in-the-making and now we are excited to be sharing THIS journey with y'all... an epic fairy-tale fantasy adventure full of magic and intrigue and action and mystery... Well, you can share the first part of the journey, because my (fledgling) publisher, The Red Sparrow Press, have wisely decided to publish THIS as a part-work, leading up to its planned publication, later in 2017, as an illustrated print edition. Those of you savvy enough to jump on the unicorn from the outset, can ride for free! Part One of THIS came out Halloween 2016, at the very reasonable price of zero pounds and zero pence - yep, it was free! Part Two is to follow for Valentine's Day 2017 and will, no doubt be launched priced at nothing for the first few days, too!

You know, THIS is exactly what you need...

[ Please Note: The taster extract below is not the beginning. It is taken from later on in the book, about a quarter of the way through: a story within the story, told to Rietta and Carla, the two young girls whose story we follow, by Rietta’s Nanna, Ivy… and Scrufty is a dog. The extract appears here courtesy of The Red Sparrow Press. Please read and enjoy - it is ideal for a bedtime story... ]

You can start reading THIS by Remy Dean with Zel Cariad from the beginning at amazon with a free sample...