Elysium Gallery, Swansea
Fri 18 June – Sat 16 July
Lee Williams is a visual artist whose latest work, CARGO, is about the relationship between industrialisation and ecology, focusing on the debate around Port Talbot’s steel crisis. Although the area has s heavily polluted atmosphere, containing particulate matter PM10, which means its reaching as high as 9 on the government’s air pollution scale, this local problem is part of bigger and broader issues which Williams expresses in his work. Port Talbot may be a highly polluted area, as it has some of the highest sea acidity level in Wales, but it is also a community which is highly dependent on this steel industry.
As well as being an artist, Williams was also a curator and lecturer for over 25 years. Now he’s a course leader at Neath Port Talbot College Group for the foundation diploma as well as being a director for Colony Projects, which is a South Wales based artist led organisation. Along with Williams’s degrees and teaching opportunities, he’s also been exhibited widely throughout the UK and abroad, earning him the title of the main prize winner at the Beep Wales International Painting Prize in 2014.
Lee Williams will be giving a talk on his art on Saturday 16 July at 2pm, discussing his art, the intricacies and the background surrounding it.
Admission: free. Info: 07980 925 449 / www.elysiumgallery.com
words MONICA MARTIN