50 x 40cm
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Painting of the Brains pubs The Customhouse, The Glastonbury Arms and The Golden Cross

This painting of the Brains pubs The Customhouse, The Glastonbury Arms and The Golden Cross is one of the seven that made up the "Hiraethau" series exhibited at the Senedd Building in Cardiff Bay and which then transferred to the West Wharf Gallery in Cardiff during the summer of 2014.

A view from the corner of Hayes Bridge Road looking down Bute Street. In this painting we can see three "Brains" pubs; Custom House, Glastonbury Arms and Golden Cross. My memory is "unreliable" but, I seem to remember that a fourth pub, "The Crown" was just under the bridge on the left.

The bright, saturated colours represent optimism for the future in the face of loss.

The painting features the Radisson Blu hotel which was erected long after the Custom House and Glastonbury Arms were demolished. Old, new and long since demolished buildings appearing in the same painting represent past and present Cardiff existing at the same time: prompting the wistful thought that past, present and departed generations of family and friends live side by side in a Cardiff which is both recognisable and unfamiliar.

My Hornby Railways 00 Gauge "Cardiff Castle" - which I used to draw as a child - leaves Cardiff and crosses the bridge at the top of Bute Street, taking away loved ones to the lost lands of England. The cars and vans are toy cars. If you look closely, there are no drivers, representing feelings of loss. The vapour trails in the sky also represent lost generations and, under the bridge, a rectangle of blue sky represents another point of departure: the docks.

Stephen Brinkworth
Stephenbrinkworth.com