Ahead of Jon Gower’s latest book release, Katy Westaway sat down with the author to discuss his celebration of visionary artist John Selway.
Jon explores his extraordinarily ordinary life in a new biography entitled Vigilant Imagination: Encounters with John Selway, written before John’s passing in 2017. Despite his artistic skill the artist chose to stay under the radar, and this book aims to bring attention to his underrated talent: “The book is saying ‘look, here is someone who is very talented and you should pay attention to him,” Jon explains. As a widely successful artist in the 1960s, he sacrificed the chance for global recognition to return to his home town of Abertillary. “He isn’t as recognised as he should be. [Photographer] David Hurn thinks he is one of the most significant artists from Wales, yet most people won’t have heard of him.”
Selway’s decision to stay in Abertillery may have compromised the extent of his success, but Jon insists the choice wasn’t a waste of potential. “He didn’t give a damn about the work, working was the point. He was happiest in his studio, which was at the bottom of a garden so steep that you’d need to be a Nepalese Sherpa to climb up from it. Once the work was finished he didn’t care about it at all.”
“In fact,” he recalls, “One of his most beautiful paintings is in a lock-up in Abergavenney, and he dragged it across a gravel floor into the snow. I was thinking, ‘this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen’ and yet he didn’t care about it.”
When asked whether the decision to stay in his home town kept him as down to earth as everyone remembered him to be, Jon agrees. “He’s a very ordinary bloke, he would go to the Pontlottyn pub in Abertillery every day. If someone asked him what he did he might answer ‘I’m a painter’, but he’d let them think that he probably painted houses rather than art.”
John Selway’s eclectic portfolio made him stand out as an artist who could portray anything from literary works to current affairs in his distinct abstract style. His art contained a significant focus on childhood, and he took heavy inspiration from poet Dylan Thomas. “Many of his paintings are based on Dylan Thomas poems because Dylan would go back to Fern Hill. And so in the same way, Tom Selway would go back to his happy childhood in Abertillery or Hereford.” In a comparison to famous painter and poet William Blake, Jon recalls Selway’s ability to bring current affairs to life in his visual depictions. The artist’s vast intake of news allowed him to communicate the current issues in the world via abstract means, a talent recognised in the book: “[It’s] called Vigilant imagination because he was vigilant to the world and used his imagination to interpret it.” His extraordinary vigilance was perhaps the reasoning for the deeper meaning which often appeared in his works, and Jon theorises the meaning behind this representation. “His paintings are beautifully coloured, but there’s a shadow in all of his works. Maybe it’s something that died in him when he had the cancer, I don’t know. We’ve all got a little bit of glum in us, but maybe the glum, as he saw it, was a sort of shadow in his life.”
But despite the element of shadow, Selway’s works were beautifully created. When questioned about his favourite work, Jon says “My favourite isn’t currently on show anywhere, it’s called Margaret Biography. It’s a love letter to his wife and it’s one of the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen.”
Jon’s biography will be released alongside a BayArt exhibition celebrating John Selway’s art, planned prior to his death. And it needs to be noted that these works are not intended as a retrospective. “The book is about the man as he’s alive; it’s full of his spirit.”
BayArt, Cardiff. Until Fri 16 Feb. Admission: Free. Info: 029 2065 0016 / http://www.bayart.org.uk/