50 x 40cm
£550 

Painting of the Brains Pub "The Vulcan", Adam Street

This painting of "The Vulcan" 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 Terrace and under the bridge to Adam Street and the famous - though now demolished - Brains pub "The Vulcan".

A model railway "Diesel Multiple Unit", leaves Cardiff Queen Street station and crosses the Adam Street bridge bound for the docks or Cardiff General Station, both points of departure for loved ones. The vapour trails also represent departing loved ones.

Feelings of loss are expressed by the absense of passengers on the train and the toy van is driver-less. Yet the bright, saturated colours represent a child's optimism for the future.

The old Wales Gas building, Snelling House, is now the Big Sleep hotel. The University of Glamorgan’s Atrium - on the left of the painting - was erected just before the Vulcan was 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.