Mission Gallery has been transformed by the artist. Its geometry and light will never seem quite the same again, filled as it has been with shining presences and the flight-paths of angels. I can’t help but feel that Keith’s work will remain long after the exhibition has gone, the memories of it imprinted on the…
Read MoreHortus Conclusus / The Enclosed Garden
Yo lo fi / Fe welais i
Each exhibition is an opportunity to make new work. This exhibition has been created specifically for the space in which it is displayed. Yo lo fi/Fe welais i, in part, pays homage to a creative friendship between Keith Bayliss and his long-time friend, the writer and teacher Malcolm Parr, which has proved to be of…
Read MoreSwsana and The Elders
Oriel Q, Narbeth: January 2016. This subject has fascinated artists for centuries – the story is an old and sadly continuing one. Aspects of its drama are enacted in some form each day with sometimes tragic consequences. A painting titled ‘Swsana’, produced many years ago by the artist was the starting point for this exhibition. The…
Read MoreWhite Voices (La Croisade des Enfants)
There will be few people who do not feel in some way moved, emotionally involved even, when mention is made of The Children’s Crusade. Keith Bayliss has made large woodcut images of the children in progress through the book — as they did through Europe towards Jerusalem. At intervals in the progress the text, in…
Read MoreVoyage of the Heart
Voyage of the Heart. “As with much of my work Voyage of the Heart became a series of related woodcuts. I was musing on the idea that the Heart – depicted as a flying head – if allowed to roam free of the constraints of the body would travel, seeking new places to lay down…
Read MoreWandering Soul
Drawings in ink on paper on the theme of an individual moving through a landscape full of personal trials and tribulations – symbolised by a winged figure, which is both mischievous and cruel. The main character is on occasion, thankfully, able to give as well as receive. In the end some solace is achieved. A…
Read MoreThe Children’s Crusade
These drawings in ink on paper were produced as a second response (the first was many years earlier in 1980 in pencil and gouache), now with Bernard Mitchell, to a translation by Malcolm Parr of Marcel Schwob’s version of The Children’s Crusade. These drawings formed the starting point for prompting the Old Stile Press to…
Read MoreThe Journey
A National Waterfront Museum Residency, in partnership with Mission Gallery Swansea It was a great pleasure to be invited by The National Waterfront Museum in association with Mission Gallery, Swansea, to set up a studio alongside the Stanhope Letter Press. I spent the month of February 2013 producing over thirty preliminary drawings in pencil and…
Read MoreSt Davids Cathedral
“… this wonderful place, this Cathedral in a village so far west that it is where Wales meets the sea, this awe-inspiring building in which the Nave slopes upwards towards the Altar…” The Old Stile Press Keith Bayliss was commissioned to produce work in and around the east end of St David’s Cathedral during its…
Read MoreVenus Drawings
Although for me Venus was an exhibition of constructions I find myself drawing – in this case on small pieces of 6cm square paper in pen and ink – musing on the figures that could surround such a figure. I return again to small male/female faces. As with most periods of drawing I will sit…
Read MoreField of Souls
Y Gaer, Art Gallery & Museum, Brecon | 29th June 15th September 2024.In collaboration with David Thomas (words) and Joe Bayliss (sound) In late 2019, prompted by an ongoing group of drawings he was making, visual artist Keith Bayliss offered an idea to his friend and long-time collaborator, the poet David Thomas, that they look…
Read MorePlay is a Roomy Subject / Le Jeu est un Sujet Spacieux
Play Is a Roomy Subject is an international exhibition, featuring works from Welsh and Canada-based artists, held at the University of Ottawa. The show variously explores metaphorical dynamics of play and care within space and relationships. Relationships, be that on an individual scale, or within communities and collectives, or even between humans and their environment,…
Read MoreWales/Canada exhibition | Nov 2022
This Autumn, my work will feature in an exhibition at Galerie 115, University of Ottawa, Canada. Provisionally titled Serious Games, it will be curated by Celina Jeffery in collaboration with uOttawa MFA Contemporary Curating students. My pen and ink drawings will feature alongside work by several Canadian artists, plus the following artists from Wales: Hamish…
Read MoreThe Sketchbook | April 2022
“The sketchbook is as an essential part of the creative process for many artists and makers. In a literal sense it is a portable tool, ready to record, jot down, sketch, and collect ideas as they emerge. It is usually private space, for exploring freely, developing ideas over time and experimenting with new materials and…
Read MoreDavid Greenslade & Supreme Collaborators | March 2022
In March 2022, Keith will be part of a group show, ‘David Greenslade and Supreme Collaborators’ at Volcano Theatre in Swansea. The exhibition is a collection of people the writer and poet David Greenslade has collaborated with and includes a selection of artists, writers, photographers, television presenters – including Desmond Morris of Naked Ape fame!!…
Read MoreThe Coming of Age, Fringe Arts Bath | May 2022
‘Society cares about the individual only insofar as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.’ Opening on 27th May, Keith will be part of this group exhibition being developed by curators Bella Kerr & Amanda…
Read MoreR&J Q&A | February 2021
“The present situation has not altered the making of art for me. It has sharpened its focus.”
Keith Bayliss Q&A with Roderick & Jones in February 2021.
Read MoreField of Souls/Maes Eneidiau
Drawings in ink on paper, 2021 These drawings in ink on paper are an ongoing series which have come from 2020/21 and the atmosphere of worry and fear and sadness that inhabits the world in which we live. But my response is to use old and familiar characters, a bird, a floating head, the Moon…
Read MoreProserpina
Drawings in ink on paper, 2021 Some ideas come out of the blue or the darkness. At least it seems that way. The name Proserpina came to me, the memory of something read and vaguely remembered. A consequence of a year or more working on ideas borne of the sad time we are experiencing. Proserpina…
Read MoreThe Green of Keith Bayliss by David Greenslade | 2012
Portrait of Keith Bayliss in his studio. Photograph by Bernard Mitchell
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