The human figure has featured in my work as an artist for a long time.

It has taken the form of portraits, self-portraits, figures based on self-portraits, group portraits, nudes and imagined figures.

In the 1980s, I produced portraits mainly of friends, ranging from my first oil painting – of Jenny (produced in Florence in 1981) – to a plaster bust of the life model Bryn and two acrylic paintings on board of Neil and Julia (all three of which were produced in Aberystwyth in 1985-86) and, finally, a set of oils of four young women artists in Tuscany (1989-90), most notably Sara Fanelli (who subsequently has become a well-known artist and illustrator in Britain).

In the early 1990s, I began to produce portraits of significant Welsh figures: a time-inspired triple portrait in mixed media of Ingrid Surgenor (piano accompanist for Cardiff Singer of the World);

a life-size, full length oil of Colin Jackson (110m high hurdler and world record holder in 1993);

a space-time based triple portrait of Robert Thomas (sculptor) which was given the prefix title ‘Angelo-Oviri’.

More recently I captured the late Grace Williams (composer) and the almost nonagenarian Charles Fisher (writer and friend of Dylan Thomas).

All of these works do not aim at likeness alone but attempt to say something more about the sitter and culture.

This also applies to my self-portraits which were not intended to be a series at the outset but have grown into just that.  The kicking-off point was my double self-portrait ‘Ceri XXV: Discordant Winter / Harmonious Summer’ (1983-84).  It began as a single, winter portrait which was subsequently complemented by a second, summer one.  These were then set into a single, bespoke frame which incorporated text.  This piece was followed by my ‘Self-Portrait in Florence’ (1989) painted using oil tempera.

A second double-portrait ensued, once again initially planned as a single image.  This is ‘Tŷ-tea, Guard-gardd’ (1996-98), its punning, bilingual title partly a result of my having moved to Swansea.  Originally, it carried the subtitle ‘Devolution Wales’.  Recently, it acquired the replacement subtitle ‘Weak or Strong?’.

The images on paper ‘Revelation’ and ‘Reflection’ – designed as a pair in 2001 – and ‘Pererin: The Traveller’ (2002) represent yet more examples of me using myself not only as a model but also as a site or metaphor.

The oils on board ‘Man for All Seasons’ (2009-11) and ‘Tillerman’ (2010-11) are cases in point, the latter acquiring the subtitle ‘Green and Dying’ in 2014.

Two works on paper also take myself as a starting point.  The one figure wears a ‘Wild November Beast’ hat made by the feltmaker Barbara Keal which I bought at the Mission Gallery Swansea.  The other supports a pair of allegorical, giving and taking, garden blackbirds.

My final category, of single or group portraits of real or imagined figures, began in the mid 1980s with ‘Aberystwyth: Dolphin’s Eye View’ (the picture is now in Bardi, Italy with its Welsh-Italian owners) and ‘Cartoon of Contemporary Wales’ (which was shown at the 1984 Lampeter National Eisteddfod).

Examples since then include the oil on board ‘Cycladic Tourism’ (1992), the watercolour and pencil ‘Sculptor Dreaming’ (2000), the pair of watercolours ‘Pen-y-Bwlch’ and ‘Pen Tair Carn’ (both 2013) and the acrylic and pencil ‘When you’re in love with a beautiful woman’ (2024).

Almost all of my figure pictures are also dealing with notions of real and imagined Place.

“When you’re in love with a beautiful woman” (after Dr. Hook & Da Vinci) acrylic and pencil on board, 18 cm x 18cm (2024) – long list work for the Beep Painting Biennial 2024 https://www.elysiumgallery.com/beep-painting-biennial-2024/