Welsh Artists: Meirion Ginsberg

"Meirion Ginsberg was born in 1985 in North Wales and trained at Cardiff College of Art. He says of his work: "I have tried to take an approach that is completely different to the traditional or stereotypical Welsh paintings, which are landscapes. My work is more of an autobiography, using friends and family and sometimes a Dadaist mish-mash where humour is injected. Influenced by a huge range of painters from Willem de Kooning to Rembrandt, I use a versatility of mark making which leaves some of the work borderline figurative and abstract.

As a child, cartoons and comics became a drive for me to take drawing seriously. As well as this I was raised in a family of painters and musicians. Drawing became a priority which sometimes or most times became more important than friends, and from a young age I started to become fluent with mark making. In my teens the attraction of comics began to wear thin, partly because of ridiculous story lines that I never really was interested in.

Application and mark making became the interest or factors I was looking for in painting, learning a lot from ‘The Great Artists’ series, to which my father subscribed. Norman Rockwell and Frances Bacon became my favourite painters. Even today I use elements of these two artists, although my knowledge and influence has expanded from the days of finding these treasures.

Humour plays a big part in my work, but this seems to be mellowed by the intuitive construction of my paintings. I am a strong believer in improvisation and risk taking, which are two strong elements in my mind that strengthen my ideas and skill. In university I tried to move away from the traditional, but always seemed to come back to it in subtle ways. Versatility plays a big part in my work and hopefully will continue to do so"."
(Exhibition catalogue)