Llyr Davies: Wreck

This exhibition brings together existing works with a new body of works painted on site at Harbour House, inspired by the tale of ‘The Wreckers’ and the many wrecks around the South Devon coastline. Davies grew up on the South Wales coast with stories about shipwrecks and wreckers - ruthless gangs who lit false beacons to lure seamen to their doom. Whilst visiting Kingsbridge, he came across a copy of Ken Radford’s book ‘Tales of South Wales’ in a local charity shop, which recounts three tales of wreckers at large on the South Wales Coast. This became the starting point for the new works, which explore the motif of the wreck in the landscape and the traces of humanity in these tragic tales from different perspectives.

Davies’ works go through many stages before they are complete; scraping off and overlaying figurative motifs with gestural mark making is one of the many processes in his work. His paintings employ a rich use of colour and texture with various combinations of materials and techniques, such as oil paint, spray paint and collage on canvas.