• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

"Glynn Vivian" logo typed in black text

Swansea’s City Gallery - A vibrant and inspiring art space for everyone

Header Left

Search

Header Right

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube

Header Left

Search

Header Right

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • What’s on
    • Exhibitions
    • Collections
    • Learning
    • Events
  • Exhibitions
    • Past
    • Current
    • Future
  • Collections
    • Conversations with the Collection
    • Richard Glynn Vivian
    • Conservation
    • Collection highlights
    • Photographic services
    • Ten Objects from the Collection
    • Swansea’s Three Night Blitz
  • Learning
    • Families
    • Schools + colleges
    • Young people
    • Adults
    • Community
  • Hire
  • Visit
    • Plan your visit
    • Take a virtual tour
    • Getting here
    • Café
    • Shop
    • Access
    • Visit Swansea Bay
  • About
    • History of the Gallery
    • Projects and Partnerships
    • Glynn Vivian News
    • Contact Us
    • Email sign-up
    • FAQs
  • Support us
    • Join the Friends of the Glynn Vivian
    • Ways to make a donation
    • Our supporters and networks
  • English
    • Cymraeg
  • Home
  • What’s on
    • Exhibitions
    • Collections
    • Learning
    • Events
  • Exhibitions
    • Past
    • Current
    • Future
  • Collections
    • Conversations with the Collection
    • Richard Glynn Vivian
    • Conservation
    • Collection highlights
    • Photographic services
    • Ten Objects from the Collection
    • Swansea’s Three Night Blitz
  • Learning
    • Families
    • Schools + colleges
    • Young people
    • Adults
    • Community
  • Hire
  • Visit
    • Plan your visit
    • Take a virtual tour
    • Getting here
    • Café
    • Shop
    • Access
    • Visit Swansea Bay
  • About
    • History of the Gallery
    • Projects and Partnerships
    • Glynn Vivian News
    • Contact Us
    • Email sign-up
    • FAQs
  • Support us
    • Join the Friends of the Glynn Vivian
    • Ways to make a donation
    • Our supporters and networks
  • English
    • Cymraeg

Sir Leslie Joseph Young Artist Award: Kathryn Ashill, Fools Gold

Wednesday 26 May 2021 //  by laura.gill

Wednesday 26 May 2021 - Sunday 27 June 2021
10:30 am - 4:00 pm

FOOLS GOLD, Kathryn Ashill, 2021

Fools Gold by Kathryn Ashill is her first exhibition in a public art gallery, and is the result of the Sir Leslie Joseph Young Artist Award, administered by the Friends of Glynn Vivian. The biennial award is open to young artists throughout the UK who have undertaken part of their education in Wales, and offers an excellent opportunity for an emerging artist to have their first solo exhibition in a public gallery.

Fools Gold is a video installation, which explores the artist’s paternal history. Ashill’s father would collect her Iron Pyrites (fools gold) from a surface mine near their home deep in the Tawe Valleys, South Wales. The work moves between this autobiographical narrative and the history of the Louis XIV, nicknamed the Sun King after he danced for courtiers and forced them to worship him, whilst he was dressed head to toe in gold.

Amateur dramatics, the Drag King scene and autobiography are recurring themes in Ashill’s work, which she uses to explore and navigate gender identity.

Funny and playful, Ashill uses the do-it-yourself aesthetics of amateur dramatics to create costumes and ‘sets’ in which she performs as both her father and also as the Sun King. In the exhibition, we enter into a homemade cave created from painted theatre flats drawing us into the central film installation.

The exhibition also includes a new artist book with commissioned art works by Tanad Aaron, Cian Donnelly, Rowan Lear and Fern Thomas.

Kathryn Ashill said ‘Winning the Sir Leslie Joseph Young Artist Award gives me the opportunity to occupy and claim space beyond the live performance. Having been raised in Swansea, the Glynn Vivian has played a significant role in my introduction to contemporary art. Accessing the gallery through education in the late 80’s and early 90’s sparked a lifelong commitment to art-making and becoming an artist. I’ve shown nationally and internationally in a broad-ranging career but exhibiting at the Glynn Vivian is the realisation of a lifelong dream. This is the homecoming of all homecomings!

Selector, Lizzie Lloyd said, “Kathryn’s proposal for the Leslie Joseph Award was fresh, fearless, and downright funny – she has the potential to do something really exciting with Glynn Vivian.”

Kay Renfrew of the Friends of Glynn Vivian said, “The Leslie Joseph Award is a great opportunity to bring a young Welsh artist to a wider audience, and to give them the experience of exhibiting at a prestigious gallery, working with an established exhibition officer and curator. The Friends are delighted to support the prize and we are sure that Kathryn Ashill will create an exciting exhibition.”


Events

Friday 11 June 2021, 6:00 pm – 12:00 am

You Tube video premiere: Fools Gold film


Friday 18 June 2021, 8:00pm

Kathryn Ashill ‘Almost Live’ on You Tube: dragged up – make up tutorial with Len Blanco

Len Blanco is a genderqueer drag king, theatremaker and educator from Cardiff. They gig regularly on London’s queer circuit as a character comedian, singer and host and also run makeup workshops for those looking to explore drag kinging. Someone at TimeOut once described them as having “overwhelming talent,” but really they’re just trying to make up for the C they got at Drama A Level for being too quiet.


Wednesday 23 June 2021. 7:00pm – POSTPONED

Artist Talk: In conversation with Helen Starr


Friday 25 June 2021, 6:00 pm – 12:00 am

You Tube video premiere: Fools Gold film


Saturday 26 June 2021, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm

Weekend Adult Workshop – Storyboarding Narratives


Sir Leslie Joseph Young Artist Award

The Award is funded by a generous legacy from the estate of the late Sir Leslie Joseph and is administered by the Friends of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. Previous award winners include Daniel Mulloy, James Donovan, Will Nash, Tomas Lewis, Richard Monahan and Heather Phillipson.

Kathryn Ashill – Brief Biography

Kathryn Ashill (born in Swansea, 1984) lives and works in Barry Island. Ashill obtained BA Hons. Fine Art Combined Media at Swansea Metropolitan University (now UWTSD) and holds an MFA from Glasgow School of Art, and has shown both nationally and internationally. Ashill is a current practice based PhD candidate at the University of Manchester, where she is researching the potential of inter species collaboration in both performance art making and bio therapy. This research is funded by the Wellcome Trust.


Selectors Biography

Lizzie Lloyd

Brought up in Swansea, Lizzie Lloyd is an art writer and historian. She lectures in Fine Art and Art and Visual Culture at University of the West of England. Her texts have been commissioned by Plymouth College of Art, Phoenix (Exeter), Hestercombe Gallery (Taunton), UH Galleries (Hatfield). She recently contributed to a Cubitt Education Community Studios project (London). Her writing has appeared in publications including Art Monthly, Journal of Contemporary Painting and artnet. She was writer-in-residence at Arnolfini (2016) and Plymouth (2017). She has just completed her doctoral thesis on Art Writing and Subjectivity at University of Bristol.

Zehra Jumabhoy

 is a UK-based art critic, curator and art historian specialising in modern & contemporary art. She was the Steven and Elena Heinz Scholar at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where she completed her doctorate on contemporary Indian art and nationalism and is currently an Associate Lecturer. Her book, The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, was published by Random House, London, in 2010.



Categories

  • Current

Event Category: Current

Footer

Glynn Vivian Art Gallery
Alexandra Road
Swansea, SA1 5DZ

+44 (0)1792 516900
glynn.vivian.gallery@swansea.gov.uk

Sign up to our email

Opening times

Tuesday – Sunday, 10.00am – 4.30pm
Last entry 4.00pm

Closed Mondays, except Bank Holidays

Free admission

Arts Council of Wales logo
Sponsored by Welsh Government logo
Tate Plus logo
Heritage lottery funded logo
Friends of the Glynn Vivian logo
Sponsored by Accredited Museum logo

Return to top of page

Copyright © · Glynn Vivian | Privacy and cookies| Website accessibility