Valerie Coffin Price
As an artist-letterer my work deals with issues to do with the environment, language and cultural identity. A sense of place is fundamental to my work, much of which is made in response to a given location. The poetic resonance of language and its connection to the environment drives my work which is concerned with how the environment is defined through language and cultural identity.
In recent projects I have been exploring ideas of mapping in relation to a sense of place, as well as an understanding of community and landscape, looking at the relationships between the human and natural, or manmade, environment.
The work involves a process of archeo-visual research using drawing and textual traces to construct works inspired by elements of natural and human geography, revealing the multi-layered structure of culture, language and nature. These traces include fragments of objects, memories, history and remnants of text and sound. It is these ‘unseen paths’ that connect us to nature, to the liminal, to the invisible world of currents, winds, ideas and language that drives my work.
I tend to work, in blocks of 5-10 years, towards an overall subject matter, existing within this overarching focus are a number of streams of inquiry, or practice. In recent years I have been working with poetry, literature and landscape as inspiration, source material and content for my art practice; the work partly involves an immersion in the landscape through walking but always entails a close and intimate relationship to river landscapes.
Contact Information
email: [email protected]
website: https://axisweb.org/artist/valeriecoffinprice
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vcp24
Professional practice & experience
Education
2022-23 University of the Highlands & Islands, MA, Contemporary Art & Archeology
1986-87 City & Guilds of London Art School Post-grad diploma, Sculpture
1973-76 Chelsea School of Art, London BA (Hons), Fine Art
Solo Exhibitions
2020 Berlin Water, StAnza Literary Festival, St Andrews
2015 The River Next Door, Oriel y Bont, University of South Wales
2011 Intimate Cartographies Cardiff | Gloucestershire | Fishguard
2007 Distant Voices, Newport Museum & Art Gallery
2003 Territories, Montmagny, Québec, Canada
1996 Vessels of Sound, Brecnock Museum, Brecon
1995 The Grave Stanzas, Norwegian Church, Cardiff | Prema Arts Centre, Uley
1993 Memory Boxes, Hereford Library & Museum
1992 Wyeside Arts Centre, Builth Wells
Karl Marx Foundation of Culture, Moscow, Russia
Two Person Exhibitions
2006 Shadows, National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff | Distant Horizons, The Gate Arts Centre, Cardiff | Residues, Llantarnam Grange, Cwmbran
2005 One World, Many Voices, Artworks Wales, Cardiff
2004 From There to Here, Swansea Museum
2000 Sea Garden, The Gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon
1996 Untitled, Ruthin Craft Centre, Clwyd
1994 Memories & Traces, County Hall, Cardiff | Castle Museum, Nottingham
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 Fieldwalkers, Corinium Museum, Cirencester
2025 Lines of Enquiry, Hardwick Gallery, Univ of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham | Made in Wales, MOMA Machynlleth
2024 Meeting of Minds, ArtCentral, Barry | Field Walking, Corinium Museum, Cirencester | The Ground Beneath our Feet, Dorset Arts Week
2023 Sculpture Cymru Small Works, MOMA, Machynlleth
2022 Thinking, Courtyard Arts, Hereford | Lle, BayArt, Cardiff
2021 Sculpture Cymru at Twenty-one, Aberystwyth Arts Centre
2019 Cartographic Imaginaries, Oriel Davies, Newtown | National Library of Wales | Swansea Museum | Thinking, Aberystwyth Arts Centre | Line & Form, Oriel Canfas, Cardiff | ArtCentral, Barry | Paper Exchange, BayArt, Cardiff | Open Books, Art Central, Barry
2018 Fields of Vision, Boundary Arts, Cardiff Bay | Sculptural Investigations, Bleddfa Centre, Bleddfa
2017 Place, Dyffryn Gardens, S Wales | Open Books, Jaipur, India | The Library of Pilgrimages, Trowbridge Arts Centre
2016 Open Books, LAC, Ottawa, Canada | Place, Sculpture Cymru, Dyffryn Gardens
2015 New Numbers: New Approaches, University of Gloucestershire
2013 RiverMap, Museum in the Park, Stroud/Ruskin Mill | River Walking, Site 13, Stroud Brewery, Stroud
2012 Earth, Water, Wind, Sky, Site 12, Old Passage, Arlingham, Gloucs | Shades of Grey, Craft in the Bay, Cardiff
2011 Poetry & Place, Exhibition/conference, Gloucs | WaterWay, Site 11, Old Passage, Arlingham, Gloucs | Flood, Exhibition/conference, Gloucs University | Beyond the Comfort Zone, Photo Stroud, Ruskin Mill, Gloucs
2010 The Moment Privacy has Passed, Usher Gallery, Lincoln
2006 100 Hours, Hereford School of Art
2003 Voyage Out, Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness | Presence and Absence, Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews: touring Scotland & Highlands & Islands
2002 Waterlines, Newport Museum & Art Gallery
1995-07 Made in the Middle Touring show: MAC, Birmingham; Stoke-on-Trent/Wolverhampton Museums
1992 Words and Letters, Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal | Fragments, Wyeside Arts Centre, Builth Wells | The Welsh Margam Sculpture Park, Port Talbot
1991 Inside Out, Hackney Museum, London
1990-01 Still & Silent Objects, Natural History Museum, London
1989 Critic’s Space V, Air Gallery, London
1988 Gathering Rites, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
1983 Independent Artists Exhibition, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin
1982 Hayward Annual, Hayward Gallery, London
Public Commissions, Fellowships & Residencies
2025 Growing Places, Gloucestershire, Artist-in-Residence
2022 Créations sur le Champ, Land Art Festival, Mont-St-Hilaire, Québec
2019 Hosking Houses, Warwickshire, Artist-in-Residence
2016 Connected Studio, BBC-Nesta digital innovation
2007 Ty Dyfan, Barry Artist-in Residence
2005-06 Hereford School of Art, aa2a residency | Welsh Refugee Council, Artist-in Residence
2002 Est-Nord-Est, Québec, Canada, Artist-in-Residence | Sites of Meaning, Derbyshire: Marker Stone for the Millennium | Newborough Warren, Anglesey, Slate fence for ‘Creu-ad’
2001 Stoke-on-Trent Council ‘Tree of Life’: oak
2000 Newport Council Design and Consultancy | Stoke-on-Trent NHS Trust, Lead Artist
1998 Boréal Art/Nature, Québec, Canada, Artist-in-Residence
1997 SUSTRANS, Bangor - Caernarfon, Artist-in Residence
1995 Margam Sculpture Park, Public seating and tables: Oak
1994 Neath Community Education National Eisteddfod, 6 schools
1993 Powys County Council Commemorative plaque: Slate | Royal Welsh Agricultural Society Commemorative plaque: Slate
1992-93 Gloucester Public Art Project ‘Benches’: Limestone and Oak
1992 Garden Festival Wales, South Wales ‘Font’: Bath stone | Margam Sculpture Trust Artist-in Residence | Gloucester Public Art Project Artist Placement | Hereford Arts-in-Action Community Arts Project
1991-02 Moscow, Russia Visiting artist
Grants
2022 Wales Arts International, Travel Grant
2016 Wales Arts International, Travel Grant
2014 Walking the Land, Project Grant As We Walk Out …
2013 Arts Council of Wales, Project Grant The River Next Door | Walking the Land, Project Grant RiverMap
2012 Tipping Point, Bursary | Emergence Summit, Bursary
2004 Arts Council of Wales: Creative Wales grant
2003 Wales Arts International, Travel Grant
2002 Wales Arts International, Research Grant
1998 Oppenheim-Downes Award | Arts Council of Wales Travel Grant
1991 Arts Council of Wales Travel Grant
1985 Arts Council of Great Britain
Publications
2021 Troeon - Turnings, Seren Books: collaboration with poets Cyril Jones & Philip Gross
2018 A Part of the Main, Mulfran Press: book design
2015 A Fold in the River, Seren Books: collaboration with poet Philip Gross
2013 Thinking Like a Wetland, Journal of Arts & Communication: with academics from Bristol, Cambridge and East Finland
Publicity
2011 Interview, Stroud FM
2009 Tidal Wales, ITV (with Mary Husted)
2004 Arts for the Rural Environment, Crefft
2002 Article re residency in Canada by VCP a-n
2001 ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ review by VCP a-n
1999 Sioe Gelf S4C
1998 Interview, Radio Wales
1995 Article ‘Valerie Coffin Price’, Brecon & Radnor Express
1994 Review ‘Exhibition of Memories’ by Jaques Rangasamy ‘Untitled’ | Interview on arts review programme The Slate, BBC1 | Article ‘Artist-in-Residence’ Uned Gelf | Article ‘Exhibition of Memories’ Gweled | Catalogue Memories & Traces
1991 Review ‘Still & Silent Objects’, Women’s Art Magazine | Article ‘Still & Silent Objects’, Artist’s Newsletter | Interview ‘Gathering Rites’, CV Journal of the Arts