A programme for early career artists in Wales and the Welsh Borders to research, develop and present new work has announced its new artist in residence who will be based in Newtown.
Paul Eastwood has been selected for part four of the Litmus programme, which offers an artist the time and space to explore emergent strands of practice between December 9 and January 27.
Eastwood, a Wrexham-based artist with a practice that explores art as a form of social production and cultural storytelling, will be based at Oriel Davies in Newtown.
He graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2014, having previously studied painting at Wimbledon School of Art.
Working widely across text, sculpture, performance, video, drawing, printmaking and textiles, he creates narrated histories and futures to investigate how place and objects can communicate cultural identities.
During the Litmus residency, he will develop the beginnings of his ambitious project ‘Dyfodiaith’ (future – language), which imagines speaking to an unknown future where the Brythonic language has remained alive, evolving throughout the centuries into something strange and unfamiliar.
The Brythonic language, collectively a group of ancient Celtic languages, were spoken in Britain before and during the Roman occupation, surviving as Welsh and Cornish and taken to Brittany by emigrants.
‘Dyfodiaith’ creatively investigates the cultural context of the Welsh language in relation to minority languages spoken worldwide, bilingualism and common languages, asking: What language will we speak in the future? How will it sound and what will it look like?
Building on the legacy of Oriel Davies’ previous initiatives - TestBed and In Focus - Litmus is an exhibition and development programme offering curatorial and practical support for five early career artists based in Wales and the Welsh Borders to research, develop and present new work at Oriel Davies.
Oriel Davies is a contemporary art gallery showing groundbreaking national and international art and craft. The gallery originates and presents around 10 exhibitions a year, across three gallery spaces. These range from major exhibitions selected from national collections, through to new work by established artists and to more experimental work by emerging artists in the Litmus programme.
Oriel Davies receives funding from Arts Council of Wales and Powys County Council. Opening hours are Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm and admission is free. For more information visit www.orieldavies.org.
Photo: One of the installations by Paul Eastwood
