Professor Sue Williams Exhibits at Portrait and Power at The National Library of Wales
Professor Sue Williams, Programme Manager of Fine Art: Studio Site & Context at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s (UWTSD) Swansea College of Art, will showcase her work as part of Portrait and Power, a major exhibition opening at the National Library of Wales from 1 November 2025 to 30 May 2026.
Portrait and Power rethinks what a portrait is, and who gets to be seen. The exhibition explores how identity, gaze, and power flow through portraiture, revealing how artists have used the act of looking to question who holds authority and who is overlooked. Through both historic and contemporary works, the exhibition invites audiences to question traditional roles, challenge convention, and consider how portraits can reflect, resist, and reshape the stories we tell about identity, gender, race, class, and belonging.
Professor Williams said: “It is wonderful to be given the opportunity to have my work in such an important exhibition. The importance of questioning traditional role playing and the challenging of conventions is a driving force within my practice, particularly as a woman living in a world of continued flux and where social media blurs boundaries between lies and truths.”
One of Wales’s leading contemporary female artists, Professor Williams has lived and worked in Wales for over twenty years. Born in Cornwall, she has built an international reputation through a rich exhibition history that spans five continents, including both solo and group shows. Her practice, rooted in autoethnography, uses drawing and text to articulate the complexities of human relationships within contemporary culture. Whether visual or textual, her work often reveals a striking vulnerability that provokes reflection on the politics of sexuality, intimacy, and emotional experience.
Professor Williams’ career is marked by significant recognition. In 2000, she received the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod and the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation Award for Painting, followed in 2006 by a shortlisting for the prestigious Artes Mundi Prize. Her continued exploration of new concepts and multidisciplinary approaches offers an unflinching response to the intricacies of human frailty, positioning her as one of the most thought-provoking voices in contemporary art today.
Exhibition Details
Title: Portrait and Power
Venue: The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Dates: 1 November 2025 – 30 May 2026
Website: www.library.wales
Further Information
Rebecca Davies
Executive Press and Media Relations Officer
Corporate Communications and PR
Email: rebecca.davies@uwtsd.ac.uk
Phone: 07384 467071