I'm based in North Wales and I'm a painter and printmaker. My work to date has been generally based on the landscape. It is abstracted, although it contains narrative elements. I'm a member of the Regional Print Centre in Wrexham. In fact I'm starting this blog after attending a seminar at the print centre, when Andrew Bryant extolled the benefits of blogging on Artists Talking.
Let me tell you about my younger self: although I was "good at art" in school, I was something of an idealist and thought I could "do some good" as a doctor: eradicate disease, or at least build a hospital for orphans, so I went to medical school rather than art school (note: this attitude reflects the way I felt at the time, not the way I feel today and should in no way be taken to suggest that I think art "does no good"). This career choice was possibly influenced by watching TV medical dramas and comedies and thinking that a doctors life looked like fun. At medical school, my guard weakened by alcohol, I was refashioned into a medical professional: a process that involved various initiation rites, desensitisation and sleep deprivation. Mostly I had quite a good time, it was wild, but it was also somewhat brutalising. I was young and sensitive on entering medical school and came out young and sensitive and a bit screwed up. I continued to paint and draw, look at and read about art. I kind of taught myself and, inevitably my work tended to look somewhat like the artists I admired- mostly british painters of the 40's, 50's and 60's. I guess if I'd gone to art school it would have looked like british painters of the 1980's. I started exhibiting in 1997 and, in 1999 I decided i needed some critical input, so I went to do a postgraduate certificate at Chester University. Then my work changed and I got into printmaking. I went part time in medicine and started to try to concentrate on making work and getting it shown. I've always avoided medical subject matter in my work, feeling too "embedded" and thinking it would turn out too "worthy", naff or melodramatic. You know the kind of stuff. Or at least I've never consciously put it in, others do see anatomical elements in the work. I love the landscape of North Wales so I used that as my subject matter. I moved here because I was into climbing. I spent all the time I could in the hills, and that came out in the work.
I'm still working part time in medicine; if I gave it up I'd have to teach (which I'm not qualified to do) or try and get grant money. I sell work through a couple of galleries but not enough to live on.
I'll move onto comics in my next post. First, here are some images of some recent work.
I've got most of my work on my website at www.ian-williams.co.uk
