I first discovered the work of Emrys Parry during a visit to  Plas Glyn-y-Weddw Gallery in Llanbedrog, North Wales, a series of beautifully crafted expressive landscapes drawn in charcoal.

To my surprise I discovered after talking to the curator that this most Welsh of artists lived and worked in Norfolk.

On a subsequent visit to his studio in Great Yarmouth, it was manifest that Parry was not only a fine draughtsman, but also one of Wales’s most gifted iconographic painters.

It is perhaps his isolation in exile away from his beloved homeland that gives his narrative pictures their power. They echo the longing of a historically suppressed language, culture and community with a patriotic desire for nationhood. These are not the icons degraded by commerce like the red dragon, twisted and caricatured on travel brochures and T-shirts, Parry has created his own language of signs drawn from our own Celtic inheritance. These thickly painted canvases transcend and evolve across the boundaries of Wales being equally effective in his adopted Norfolk home.

Bernard Mitchell
Photographer

Mi welais waith Emrys Parry am y tro cyntaf yn ystod ymweliad â Phlas Glyn-y-Weddw Llanbedrog yng Ngogledd Cymru,cyfres o dirlunniau siarcol mynegiadol.

Syndod oedd canfod fod arlunydd mor Gymreig yn byw ac yn gweithio yn Norfolk.

Ar ymweliad dilynol i’w stiwdio yn Great Yarmouth yr oedd yn amiwg nad oedd Parry yn unig yn grefftwr galluog ond yn un o’r arlunwyr delweddol mwyaf medrus yng Ngymru.

Efallai bod ei alltudiaeth o’i henwlad annwyl yn rhoi’r darluniau hanesiol eu nerth. Myneganthiraeth am iaith, diwilliant, cymdeithas a gwladgarwch.  Nid yw rhain yn ddelweddau wedi eu diraddio fel y ddraig goch a fasnachwyd yn ddigriflun ar bamffledi a chrysau T. Mae Parry wedi creu iaith bersonol o arwyddion a dynnwyd o’i etifeddiaith Geltaidd ac mae ei ddarluniau o baent trwchus yn rhagori ac yn datblygu dros ffiniau Cymru ac yr un mor effeithiol yn ei gartref mabwysiedig yn Norfolk.

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Emrys Parry’s studio faces east and is sited on the eastern edge of East Anglia within walking distance of the bustling port of Great Yarmouth. Yet it is to the western edge of Britain and to his childhood home on the Llŷn peninsula of north-west Wales that much of his art refers. The largely Welsh speaking community of the small fishing village and port of Nefyn, where Emrys spent a treasured childhood, remains a potent resource for deeply rooted traditions and above all the distinctiveness of its people. The landscape of Llŷn is equally profound in influence, with the profile of the peaks of Yr Eifl as seen across the bay from Nefyn recurring in his art as if witness to the people he has physically, but not psychologically left behind.

Once rooted, the psyche of a place and its people can remain indelible in the memory across a lifetime and from one lifetime to another. As a boy, Emrys spent long hours in the company of his grandfather, a granite setsman who was highly respected in the local community and enjoyed a reputation as a teller of stories. However it was Elis Gwyn Jones, a teacher at Pwllheli Grammar School, who opened his eyes to the possibilities of translating the experience into visual art and reaching beyond the confines of the local community to further develop his ensuing passion. An English art school training followed by a highly respected teaching career in Great Yarmouth and Norwich, echoing the spirit of Ivor Davies that “…we might have said that we did not think of Nefyn as an isolated segment of humanity but rather as part of a much larger world whose limits stretched far beyond any local horizons”. 

For Emrys, the perception of the visual world as explored in visual art can be understood with the clarity and complexity of a language deeply-rooted. Stories can be told and communicated through art as if ‘in the flesh’. As often as he can, Emrys returns to Nefyn in person, sketchbook in hand, to provide fuel for his memories. A few deft lines on paper can aid recall: back in the studio these aide memoires become worked and reworked, evoking strong memories in their wake. He draws on both living memory and ancient tradition, sometimes in the same gesture of brush or charcoal, as if in a single breath. Along with particular events or features of a contemporary world, memories of a Celtic mythology and legend are a visible presence, not as direct illustration or form of nostalgia but as an integral element in the schematic patterning of the landscape, echoing the rhythms and patterns of the music and poetry of ancient tradition.

Victoria Mitchell
Research Supervisor at Norwich University of the Arts

Mae stiwdio Emrys Parry wedi’i leoli ar ymyl ddwyreiniol East Anglia, dafliad carreg o borthladd prysur Great Yarmouth, a thua’r dwyrain y mae’n wynebu hefyd. Er hynny, i gyfeiriad ac, yn wir, i ben arall y Deyrnas Unedig, a gogledd-orllewin Cymru a’i blentyndod ym Mhenrhyn Llŷn y mae llawer o’i gelf yn cyfeirio. Mae cymuned Gymraeg glos Nefyn, lle treuliodd Emrys blentyndod gaiff ei drysori, yn adnodd grymus sy’n parhau i’w ysbrydoli – o’r traddodiadau cynhenid i’r bobl arbennig. Mae dylanwad tirlun Llŷn yr un mor gryf, gydag amlinelliad copaon Yr Eifl fel y gellir eu gweld o fae Nefyn yn ymddangos yn gyson yn ei waith [(fel pe baent yn dyst i’r bobl y mae wedi’u gadael ar ol yn gorfforol, os nad yn seicolegol)].

Ar ôl gwreiddio, gall seici lle a’i bobl aros yn annileadwy yn y cof gydol oes, ac o un oes i’r llall. Yn fachgen, treuliodd Emrys oriau hir yng nghwmni ei daid, setsmon ithfaen a oedd yn uchel ei barch yn y gymuned leol ac yn enwog am fod yn dipyn o storiwr. Ond Elis Gwyn Jones, athro yn Ysgol Ramadeg Pwllheli, a agorodd lygaid Emrys i’r posibiliadau o drosglwyddo’i brofiadau yn gelf weledol ac i fentro y tu hwnt i’r gymuned leol i ddatblygu ei ddawn ymhellach. Aeth yn ei flaen i hyfforddi mewn ysgol gelf yn Lloegr cyn troedio llwybr gyrfa addysgu lewyrchus yn Great Yarmouth a Norwich, gan ein hatgoffa o eiriau Ivor Davies “... efallai y byddem wedi dweud nad oeddem yn meddwl am Nefyn fel segment ynysig o ddynoliaeth ond yn hytrach fel rhan o fyd llawer mwy gyda’i derfynau’n ymestyn ymhell y tu hwnt i unrhyw orwelion lleol”.

I Emrys, gellir deall y byd gweledol fel ceir ei archwilio mewn celf weledol drwy eglurder a chymhlethdod iaith sydd wedi’i gwreiddio’n ddwfn mewn hanesion a hynny drwy gelf fel pe bai ‘yn y cnawd’. Bydd Emrys yn dychwelyd i Nefyn mor aml ag y mae’n gallu, gyda’i lyfr braslunio, i ail-gynnau tân ei atgofion. Gall ambell linell gywrain ar bapur fod yn ddigon i brocio’r cof; yn ôl yn y stiwdio caiff yr aides-memoires hyn eu hogi, gan ysgogi atgofion cryf. Bydd yn tynnu ar gof byw a thraddodiadau hynafol, weithiau yn yr un ystum o frwsh neu siarcol, fel petaent yn yr un anadl. Ynghyd â digwyddiadau neu nodweddion arbennig o fyd cyfoes, mae atgofion o fytholeg Geltaidd a chwedlau yn bresenoldeb amlwg, nid fel darlun uniongyrchol na ffurf o hiraeth ond fel elfen annatod ym mhatrwm amlinellol y tirwedd, gan adleisio rhythmau a phatrymau cerddoriaeth a barddoniaeth o draddodiad hynafol.