Quoted from: http://cwales.icnetwork.co.uk:
Plea against fighting other people's wars wins gold, Aug.2002 Clive Betts, The Western Mail


A POWERFUL plea against Wales being involved in other countries' wars won the Art Gold Medal for painter and art historian Dr Ivor Davies, of Penarth. Dr Davies's work also aimed at the destruction of the Welsh language and Welsh communities. He exhibited three large paintings consisting largely of images to win the Eisteddfod Gold Medal and cash prize of £3,000.

The adjudicators were particular struck by one of the works which consisted of an old gun mounted in a frame as if it were tearing about an old family Bible. They said, "This painting provided the abiding image which stayed with us throughout the entire selection process. Of his three works, they said, "Here is an intensely intelligent and thoughtful artist, mature and complete, yet still absolutely fresh and still pushing vigorously and resourcefully at boundaries and conventions.

Dr Davies, 66, a retired lecturer on the history of art at Edinburgh University and then at Newport College of Art, said yesterday, "Our language and communities are facing a new threat and this is a picture of that world, with these old and valuable things that are worth more than money being torn apart and shattered.

His second piece is headed by the words (in Welsh) Let Wales Refuse to Fight England's Wars. People are invited to chalk their comments on the work. The artist says in his essay that such graffiti is "a powerful art form which can undermine the established order".

The third work features three nationalists who burned wooden buildings at an aircraft bombing school at Penyberth, near Pwllheli, before World War II in protest at its siting in a Welsh-speaking district.

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