The Valleys - Anthony Stokes

Fri, 11 Jan 08 12:32:00

Tony Stokes’s exhibition includes 100 colour photographs, selected from more than a 1000 images, made during the last 5 years. The subject is limited to the 'industrial' valleys from Neath to east of Ebbw Vale - via The Heads of the Valleys road - back to the 'boundary' of the M4.

 

The Valleys have often been depicted in shades of grey but Stokes's pictures reveal a unique and richly-coloured landscape where the history of The Valleys' townscapes is overlaid with decades of modifications.

 

Anthony Stokes explains, 'only notions of conventional good taste and prejudice are capable of obscuring the wonder of The Valleys. Could you trust a painting or a verbal description to tell the truth?' 

 

Whilst the writer, Iain Sinclair, adds; 'Look closer. You find an enchantment, an abdication of metropolitan fret and status-struggle in favour of a leisurely logging of elements; a landscape that is out of time, unresolved. In transition. Memorials of discontinued industries. New money spent on new things. Hillsides learning to disguise their wounds.'   

 

Anthony Stokes's mother is from Baglan and Abercanaid, and his father was from Bridgend. His childhood was spent in Gloucester, though he has been a regular visitor to Merthyr and Bridgend, particularly in his early years. Now 61, he has spent most of his working life in London as an exhibitions curator, with a specialist interest in contemporary art. For the last 5 years he has lived in Ogmore Vale in Glamorgan.

 

The exhibition was initiated by the Cynon Valley Museum, Aberdare - with support from The Arts Council of Wales - and was shown there in the spring. It was then presented at Oriel y Bont, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd during the summer, and at St David's Hall, Cardiff in the autumn. The exhibition is at The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, from 12 January - 5 April 2008.

 

 

The exhibition will be officially opened at the Library's Open Day on Saturday 26 January.

 

To coincide with the exhibition, a 168-page hardback book, The Valleys, is published  by the Bridgend-based publisher, Seren. With a substantial text by Iain Sinclair and with more than a 100 colour images, the book is a companion to the exhibition. Iain Sinclair spent his childhood in Maesteg but has lived and worked in London as a writer and poet for many years.

 

 

Further Information:

Siôn Jobbins, NLW Press Office: 01970 632 902  sij@llgc.org.uk

 

The book accompanying the touring exhibition, The Valleys, can be brought online from the Library’s shop.