About

Wales works in both relief and intaglio processes, regularly combining the potential of multiple techniques, particularly enjoying the ability to layer colour, and with the potential of combining transparency with opacity, process lead. Mostly these are one-off unique works — which may be part of a series around a theme — but not editions.

The work reflects preoccupations with the environment, and the flotsam and jetsam of life, and around the use of found objects and discarded materials, to explore concerns of waste, repair and reuse. Increasingly it uses less, or non toxic, processes, to leave a lighter footprint in it’s making.

It is inspired by the textures and surfaces eroded by use and time, using the imagery of both the macro, and micro, patterns and geometry in landscape, and the visible repair of traditional objects, whether rural buildings, or worn textiles, which narrate their history through the various rifts, rips, fractures, and schisms that have been experienced, together with the interventions made in their preservation.

The work moves between apparent abstraction to images based on more representational elements, but all aim to capture an impression or idea, rather than creating a likeness – a ‘visual metaphor’.