Vigilant Imaginations: The Art of John Selway
- Submitting institution
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Swansea University / Prifysgol Abertawe
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 36156
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
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- Publisher
- Three Imposters
- ISBN
- 978-1-9999522-0-4
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- November
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- This is the only monograph written about the Welsh artist John Selway and is an attempt to both present his work and explore its meaning. It is mainly based on a series of interviews with Selway conducted between late spring 2016 and the beginning of 2017 as well as e-mail exchanges and phone calls as well as interviews with fellow artists, collectors of his work and critics. The book seeks to evaluate his work but mainly to explain that it exists, as here was an artist who deliberately kept under the radar. It is part of a series of Encounters With...books that seek to introduce or re-present artists and writers who may have been neglected in Wales, or under-appreciated, such as Osi Rhys Osmond, R.S.Thomas, Ifor Davies and the film director Karl Francis.
John Selway’s work was often inspired by literature: as a consequence the research for the book involved exploring the work of writers Selway enjoyed or expressly referenced in his paintings such as Dylan Thomas, the Australian novelist Patrick White, Jean Genet, Oscar Wilde and J.M.Barrie. The book explores the interplay between the two forms and suggests a way of reading Selway’s work as one might a poem, looking for visual rhymes and elements that chime.
One of the other by-products of writing the book was documenting Selway’s work, especially now that some of his finest works, the Stations of the Cross series situated in the parish church in his native Abertillery is under threat of being moved and is seriously neglected. The photographs, and indeed the book itself have shored up a campaign to have these works properly cared for and eventually better housed which is luckily gaining the right sort of traction.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
