RIP John Selway

From the Peter Pan series Digital Print

I have just learnt of the death of John Selway. It's always salutary to be reminded of the fact that we are all getting older and John who was one of Wales' most eminent contemporary artists, was only 79. He studied at the Royal College of Art from 1959 - 62 alongside David Hockney, Derek Boshier, Kitaj and Alan Jones and he taught at Newport College of Art from 1964-91, which was where I first came across his work when I was there as a student during the period 1970-73.

 

He had recently begun to explore the possibilities that working digitally offered him. Initially making a series of self-portraits, images that were a response to his on-going struggle with cancer.

John Selway: Self portraits with throat cancer

 

This year saw him exhibit his last group of works, 'The Peter Pan Series'. He had 11 images on the Oriel Q gallery exhibition that were made on a Samsung tablet and which were printed on Hanna Muller archival digital paper. A testament to his continuing exploration of the possibilities offered by new technologies to him as an ever inventive and resourceful artist.

From the Peter Pan series: Digital Print

This was what he had to say about his work in his final exhibition:

 

‘This exhibition comprises work made over the last 10 years or so, contents of which are recent works inspired by J.M.Barrie’s book of Peter Pan and earlier work inspired by my own early childhood and the poems of Dylan Thomas’s own childhood such as Fern Hill. You may gather from this that the general emphasis of the exhibition is my use of the written narrative as a springboard for the visual image. I have written in the past of my concern for the written word and the way in which it continues to inform my work.’

He will be missed.

John Selway The Rhune Sunset: Oil on canvas. 2009