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The Welsh Quilt Series - John Uzzell Edwards was born in the mining village of Deri in the Rhymney Valley, South Wales. He now lives and works in the mountains north of Swansea. His work is to do with ‘Pure Painting’, not ‘Picture Making’, and has been driven by an exploration of early Welsh artistic forms. His early work was inspired by Celtic crosses and stone inscriptions, medieval floor tiles, and the lettering and carpet pages of holy books and old manuscripts like the Black Book of Carmarthen, these intricately patterned and lettered documents have now led him to a more recent and domestic past: He was awarded the Granada Arts Fellowship by York University in 1966, and soon after received the Prix de Rome, spending a year at the British School in Rome. In 1988 he was granted an Arts Council of Wales Travel scholarship to study Celtic art in Europe, and has twice gained major awards at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. He formed a major new group of Welsh painters ‘Ysbryd / Spirit Wales’ in 1998, the following year exhibiting at the Humphries Gallery, San Francisco. Further major shows have included the Millennium Exhibition at Tenby Museum and Art Gallery; the Mall Gallery, London in 2001; National Museum Wales, 2003; MOMA in 2004; the Hay Festival and St. David’s Cathedral, 2005; MOMA, 2006 and Shoreditch, London in 2007. He has represented Wales in the Euro-Celtic Art Salon as part of the Festival Inter Celtique, Lorient, Brittany three times in recent years and 2008 will see his work return to Lorient.
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