Native Land: North Wales Artists and Landscape, 1979-2004

The ‘new’ Mostyn Art Gallery opened its doors on 11 August 1979 with an exhibition entitled The Native Land: An inaugural exhibition of artists’ work from 1699-1979 which celebrates the landscape of North Wales.
This new exhibition, Native Land: North Wales Artists and Landscape,1979-2004,celebrates the Gallery’s 25th anniversary by showing works made since 1979 which are in some way a response to the landscape of North Wales.
All thirteen artists are from the region. Most were born, brought up and still live here, some have moved here, one or two have moved away. Three of the artists from the original exhibition are included: Barry Flanagan, David Nash and Peter Prendergast.

The exhibition reflects the varying ways in which art has developed over the period since Oriel Mostyn opened in 1979. Relationship to landscape is often a vitally important element in the formation of the sense of identity of both individuals and cultures.
The works in Native Land point to the power which the landscape still retains to provoke responses by artists and the breadth of artistic language which contemporary artists from north Wales use to express them.