Iwan Bala is one of the most positive and dynamic figures in Welsh culture and his work will be on display at the National Botanic Garden from March 1st. Now Senior Lecturer at the School of creative Arts and Humanities at Trinity College Carmarthen, Iwan is a multi disciplinarian and has published numerous books, articles and essays on contemporary art in Wales as well as presenting and researching television programmes, teaching and curating.
His latest exhibition “Our Nature” explores the conflicts and conjunctions that exist at the wellspring of creativity, where uncontrolled inspiration is moulded and cultivated, where human attempts to control nature are in themselves natural.
Speaking of this driving force, Iwan comments: “In maps we see how nature, in the form of rivers and mountain ranges, affects human settlement patterns. Culture grows and evolves, like plants. The word culture relates to the world of cultivation and growth.
“Language develops like plantlife: words grow from seeds of creation into poetry – irregular, uncontrolled, then ‘cultivated’.
“Drawing is the same: partly spontaneous, wild, unconscious, partly ‘cultivated’.”
Iwan’s work will be on show until May 1.
