A portrait of the human experience

On show in Milford Haven until August, Glenn Ibbitson and Suzanne Callen's work dives deep into the human experience, writes Jenny White

- Jenny White

TWO intense and compelling figurative artists are exhibiting at the Waterfront Gallery in Milford Haven this summer: Glenn Ibbitson, a painter based in Newcastle Emlyn, and Suzanne Callen, a Swansea-based artist focusing largely on portraits of women.

For Ibbitson, his art is a means of addressing important issues.

"Visual art is my vehicle for the communication of ideas," he says. "As a line in 'Overdub' has it, 'pictures decorate; paintings communicate.

"If my paintings are not addressing some issue, there doesn't really seem much point in producing them at all. I really don't wish to contribute to the vast reserves of currency in our commercial art world. Actually, this policy has worked to mutual benefit. I don't pester the art world to promote my product; they don't try to influence my output. Win-win."

For Callen, making art is a way of seeing. When visiting a gallery, she will often find her hands making movements as she looks at a painting, trying to recreate the brushstrokes.

In her own work, she focuses on "faces and figures to express aspects of the human condition."

"I'm always searching for a composition that really stimulates me, or the contrast between light and dark, or how colours are like brush strokes," she says. "You also get a lot of emotion through my brushstrokes."

In a quarter of a century of work, Ibbitson's career has shapeshifted considerably, and the selection of work in the show reflects this.