The idea of the Euro-Wales 92 Group arose out of an art summer school which Ceri Thomas co-ran in Tuscany in 1991. It was officially founded a year later back in Wales- in Barry- by him, Glyn Pooley (who had attended the 1991 Italian summer school) and Robert Greetham (he and Thomas had studied art at Aberystwyth), plus eight other Wales-based artists. All members of the group were united in the belief that Wales was and should remain part of an inclusive European culture. We last exhibited in Cardiff in 1993, at the Third Wave Gallery (formerly West Wharf Gallery) in the Jacob’s Market building.

Our 2024 group show at the Turner House Gallery, Penarth, consists of mostly two-dimensional artworks, and a few three-dimensional pieces, produced in the years in and around our formation (1987-97) and within the last ten years (2014-24); a dynamic ‘then and now’ arrangement which reveals personal and wider continuities and changes.

Thirty years on from our beginnings, we are now a new mix of twelve exhibitors; three, original, founder members (Robert Greetham, Glyn Pooley and Ceri Thomas) plus nine new contributors (Tony Alcock, Jenny Allan, Heather Eastes, Lorna Edmiston, Mary Husted, Dilys Jackson, Gus Payne, Gerda Roper and Alan Salisbury). In other words, six women and six men, all of whom remain convinced that, despite Brexit and because of the plight of Ukraine, we in Wales need to maintain a collective sense of being European.

Each of us has had links with the European continent through our artwork and/or in our lives in the pre-Brexit period. Our exhibits and artist statements demonstrate this, as they do our direct and oblique ways of addressing aspects of Wales and Europe during and since Brexit. There are explicit connections in the ‘then and now’ works of some of us, whilst for others the links are more circumstantial. This diversity is one of our strengths.

We hope that our exhibition will enable our public (and us) to reflect upon our work and on our shared culture(s) thirty years ago and now. This double-focus serves as a cultural ‘site’ for enjoyment and debate and as a putative re-launch (or re-invention) of the Euro-Wales 92 Group.