Neale Howells, 35, is a leading contemporary artist in Wales today. Born in Neath, a former mining town at the western end of industrial South Wales, it is this environment that in part informs his work. Reminiscent of Art Brut and Abstract Expressionism, it adopts a vocabulary of alienation and abandonment intrinsic within the language of graffiti, and it challenges various aesthetic issues.

The graphic quality of the pieces is deliberately unrefined, an uninhibited approach to the creation of artwork; Howells often employing childlike motifs within complex works.

He has exhibited widely within Wales, including the selected visual arts showcase at the National Eisteddfod. Howells visited Berlin in 1997 and New York in 1999 and has produced a body of work influenced by this.

He also claims the dubious honour of having a solo show cancelled at the eleventh hour due to a dispute over its title “croeso i cymru, fuck”, (literally ‘welcome to Wales, fuck’.) which challenged censorship in favour of the acceptance of certain reality.