Friday 7 August turned out to be one of those evenings you hope for and rarely get. Blue skies over Cardiff, warm air, and a gallery full of people who clearly love art. I couldn't have asked for a better setting to see my work included in the Albany Gallery Summer Show.
(I won’t kill the mood by mentioning the 6 hour journey due to various traffic incidents, twice as long as it should’ve taken!)
I travelled up with Debbie, who manages all of my marketing, and Alex, my photographer, and I think the three of us turning up together took the team at Albany a little by surprise. They hadn't expected me to make such a trip, but after thirty years of exhibiting, some occasions are worth showing up for in person.
The gallery spans two floors and on the night it was full to the rafters, paintings in every medium alongside ceramics, more than twenty artists represented in total. It's a genuinely varied show, and there's real pleasure in seeing your own work sitting alongside so many different approaches. Running alongside the Summer Show is a retrospective for Alastair Elkes-Jones (1942–2024), which gave the evening an added sense of occasion.
What struck me most was the atmosphere. Relaxed, warm, unpretentious. The staff were welcoming from the moment we arrived, and it was obvious this is a gallery with a loyal following, many of the guests have been supporting Albany since Mary Yapp founded it. That kind of long-standing relationship between a gallery and its collectors doesn't happen by accident, and it was a privilege to be part of the room for an evening.
The Summer Show continues until 12 September, so there's still time to visit if you're in Cardiff. Six of my best paintings are included, and I'd encourage anyone curious to go and see the show in person, art always reads differently in the room than on a screen.
Here's to Albany, to Mary Yapp's legacy, and to galleries like this one that keep collectors coming back year after year. We all need original art in our lives!
