Bethan Huws (born 1961) is a Welsh multi-media artist whose work explores place, identity, and translation, often using architecture and text. Her work has been described as "delicate, unobtrusive interventions into architectural spaces".

Life and career

Huws was born in Bangor, Wales in 1961. English is her second language, with Welsh being her vernacular. She studied at Middlesex Polytechnic between 1981 and 1985 and at the Royal College of Art, London, between 1986 and 1988. At her graduate show, Huw's presented an empty studio 'having chiselled clean, inch by inch, the entire wooden-floor'. Huws' first major solo exhibition was Art Cologne 1989 at Koelnmesse GmbH in Cologne. Other notable exhibitions include the Anthony Reynolds Gallery (1988), Riverside Studios (1989), Kunsthalle Bern (1990), Luis Campana Gallery (1991), the Venice Biennale (2003) and the Ingleby Gallery (2011). In 1991, Huws moved to Paris, France. In 1993, Huws made a film called Singing for the Sea in which eight Bulgarian women sing and dance on a beach on the North Sea coast in Northumberland, wearing traditional Bulgarian dress. The performance took place over three evenings in front of a live audience, and the resulting 12-minute film was exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp. Huws was awarded the Adolf-Luther-Trust Art Award in 1998. Between 1999 and 2000, Huws undertook The Henry Moore Sculpture Fellowship at the British School at Rome. In 2004, she won the Ludwig Gies-Award for Small-sized Sculpture by LETTER Trust, Cologne, Germany. She won the B.A.C.A. Europe 2006 award given by the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. Huws was the DAAD Artist-in-Residence between 2007 and 2008 in Berlin, Germany. Huws has lived in Berlin since 2010.

Artistic style

Huws' work is centred around the re-imagining of spaces through intervention. Through the use of multi-media materials, her work interrupts and redirects understanding. Self-investigation is also required by the viewer to create a new interpretation of space. There is a universal commentary within her work, conveying messages that can be understood without language. Heavily basing her practice on Duchamp, Huws' work is often satirical, reinventing spaces in a parodical way. This is achieved through her use of lettering, exemplified in works such as 'Piss off I'm a Fountain'. Similarly, Huws plays with readymade elements to construct artistic perspectives. She is also influenced by René Magritte's intellectual work. Identity is another theme central to Huws' work, often reflecting on her life as a Welsh artist. Her landscapes are usually created from memory, typically depicting farming scenes in North Wales. From a young age Huws has used reeds to make miniature boats. These boats carry subjective value to Huws due to their link to Wales and are incorporated creatively into her work.

Exhibitions