“Newport in the 90s was the best place to be on the planet. I hope my paintings do it justice,” says city’s drumming icon.
Launching his latest selection of Newport-inspired paintings, the drummer for Newport 90s rockers 60ft Dolls, says that lockdown changed his life.
“I was always a painter at heart, but it took lockdown for me to realise this,” says Carl Bevan.
Originally from Glynneath, Carl grew up in Newport, and called it home for 25 years. His band, 60ft Dolls, was signed up by Geffen Records – the label of Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana – and he travelled the world living the dream.
He started painting in October 2018, with no idea that it would replace his lifelong obsession with music.
He has since sold 90 originals, and countless prints, in just over three years.
“I began with landscapes, then painted The City Arms and Womanby Street, in Cardiff, which opened up a whole new dimension to my artwork,” he says.
“It’s a bit of a cliché that an artist paints what is around them, but it is pretty much true in my case.
“I work from my own photographs, so I initially focused on Cardiff – where I have now lived for a decade -which led to a successful collaboration with the “I loves the Diff” brand, in the form of two calendars.
“My next focus was always going to be Newport: a massive part of my life in the 90s and, at that time, the best place to be on the planet.
“I will always have a deep connection with Newport, so looking at my iconic landmarks in “the Port”, the Transporter Bridge was always on my painting list.
“I didn’t want to try and tackle it too early, as it’s a beast of a structure, and a proper technical challenge. I felt with a few years of painting experience under my belt it was time to take it on.
“I also wanted to paint it at night because, partly, that’s when we, 60ft Dolls, shot our “Talk to me” video on it in 1996,” he says.
“We spent all night going across the Usk river until the sun came up when we were shooting the video, so that’s kind of where it lives in my head now.
“I wanted to paint it at night, but also inject some warmth around it against that massive steel structure.
“The Murenger painting is a commission for a Newport ex-pat who has a strong connection with the iconic city pub.
“When I went to take some reference photos of it on a dark rainy Tuesday night, it was obvious that it would be best to have it in context.
(High Street, Newport, with The Murenger (right) and Le Pub (left).
“Le Pub has been a massive part of the Newport music scene since the 90s, I have played there many times, and I was keen to get it in the painting.
“It’s a complicated painting and took around 120 hours to complete over five weeks.”
Carl says that people have strong emotional connections with places for all sorts of reasons and the most satisfying experiences for him, as a painter is when his work really resonates for somebody.
“I’m always chasing this experience because painting is a pretty solitary pursuit, so when it happens, it kind of completes the loop of the whole process.
“I’m really happy with the way it turned out. People always assume that painting is a relaxing thing to do, and it can be.
“But for me, the majority of the time, it’s a fight.
“Sometimes you win. Sometimes the painting wins.
“This one was all out war; a dirty bar fight with broken pool cues and biting.
“Finally getting the upper hand was a great feeling. Paintings have an ‘ugly stage’, where all of the first layers of paint are visible, and it was great to see that rainy Tuesday night reality emerges at the end,” he says.
Carl will be showing his new paintings, and over a dozen more, at his pop-up gallery at the Morgan Arcade in Cardiff in the Autumn.
