A State of Mind

Ceri Pritchard

I am intrigued by the precarious state in which we live, the delicate balance between opposing forces such as comfort and unease, chaos and order or even sanity and insanity. My motivation to paint is caused by internal forces rather than those of the world around me. Subsequently the choices I make and their consequences are lived out in my paintings.

My painting has developed through lived experience. I explore iconography that combines decorative and representational forms. I enjoy the metaphors that painting creates. I am fascinated by the illusional, the retinal and the psychological effects of shape, colour and pattern. I am not looking for meanings or justification; it is the engagement with the process, questions are asked, and the answers hopefully result in an enduring image that transcends its fabrication.

Exploration and experimentation are essential ingredients in these pieces. Themes and motifs evolve and expand, sometimes imploding or reappearing at a later date. For example: for some time, television, the omnipresent machine that has invaded our modern homes, is a component that has frequented my paintings in various guises. The absurdity, the routine and the sinister are qualities that I associate with this harmless instrument of entertainment, this interests me. Likewise, an overhead view of a person morphed into a pseudo-biomorphic element which alludes more to a future pathogen than its human ancestor. These forms and others are the worlds in which my unresolved dramas occur.

In my work, it is the concealed, the mundane and the forgotten which are exciting. My images are a means to reconciliation with personal demons and a confrontation with a longing that is the inner core of everyone. It is my personal documentation of who I am and the time in which I live.

Biography
Ceri Pritchard was born in 1954 and grew up in Llangefni, Anglesey. The son of two Welsh artists, Gwilym Prichard and Claudia Williams, he enrolled at Liverpool School of Art, graduating in 1976 with a 1st class honours.  Ceri was awarded the prestigious John Moores Scholarship which allowed him an extra year at the Liverpool Art School specialising in sculpture. In 1978 he continued his studies at St Martins, London on an advanced course in Fine Art.
Ceri has travelled widely, living and working in New York, Berlin, Paris and spending many years in France and more recently Mexico. The influences of these varied life experiences can be seen in his classically surrealist style.  As well as creating sculptures and paintings Ceri has worked with sound and video. He has exhibited widely both in his homeland and abroad. Leaving Mexico permanently in 2015, he has now returned to North Wales.