Tŷ Pawb is delighted to announce a large-scale solo exhibition by Cardiff based artist and writer Anthony Shapland, opening Summer 2026. Anthony Shapland is a Welsh artist, founder of artist-led space g39 and novelist. Within his writing and artistic practice, he blends documentary and fiction, drawing on his lived experience of rural queerness and growing up performing straight.
Exhibition runs: 11 July – 31 October 2026
Preview and Press View: 10 July 2026
Shapland was recently selected as one of The Observer’s 10 best new novelists 2025 and Waterstone’s Welsh book of the year for his debut novel A Room Above a Shop (Granta), which tells the story of hidden intimacy between two men living in a South Wales valley in the late 1980s, during the time of Section 28. Continuing to work between the gallery and the printed page, whether in image, text or film, Shapland constructs intimate portraits of lives lived at the edges of rural landscapes, often filmed on location around Bargoed, the town in the Rhymney Valley where he grew up. His ongoing fascination with illusion and mimicry, reflecting the ways in which his protagonists seek to blend in with their surroundings, manifests in his use of the hidden techniques of traditional filmmaking, including props, backdrops, filters, artificial light and Foley sound effects. These cinematic devices in turn set up and then unpack coded narratives. Speaking also to other concealed lives, the artist asks, “What happens when you stay?”
Shapland’s exhibition at Tŷ Pawb will include a new film and builds on recent moving image work, including Starling Seven (2025), in which a montage of starlings copy and repeat man-made noises, and Between the Dog and the Wolf (2019) which encapsulates the artist’s interest in the cinematic illusion of shooting day for night. The exhibition will be accompanied by an integrated reading space and a dynamic public programme.
Shapland’s solo show will be guest-curated by long time peer and associate Marie-Anne McQuay, previously curator of Liverpool Biennial 2025, with Tŷ Pawb Creative Director Jo Marsh.
Anthony Shapland said: “I’m excited to be working at Tŷ Pawb – exploring the space between exhibition and publication, image and word and referring to a life lived in two parts, performed – never what it seemed on the surface. Nothing is what it appears to be, and an early desire to not stand-out, even after coming-out, has had a lasting impact on all of my work – filled with references to stage and backstage, to a performance of life. At Tŷ Pawb I’m keen to blur the line between inside and outside the gallery. “
Creative Director Tŷ Pawb Jo Marsh said: “We are absolutely delighted to be presenting this exciting new body of work by Anthony Shapland here at Tŷ Pawb next year. Anthony is a truly cherished Welsh artist, at a significant moment in his career. This solo exhibition offers us a fantastic opportunity to engage with Anthony’s beautiful, poetic and unique vision and celebrate his significant contribution to contemporary art in Wales. We can’t wait to share it with our visitors. Building on our initial partnership as part of the Venice Biennale 2019, working with independent curator Marie-Anne McQuay on this project, fresh from her role as curator of Liverpool Biennial 2025, is a dream.”
Guest Curator, Marie-Anne McQuay said: “I’ve followed Anthony Shapland’s practice for nearly 20 years and am so delighted to finally work with him on a solo show for Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham. I’m looking forward to sharing his incredible sensibility for observation and detail, which manifests both in his filmmaking and writing, with audiences next year”
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