With its literary festival and numerous bookshops, Hay-on-Wye may attract the biggest talents in the arts but, seemingly, not all artistic talent is appreciated by some residents.
The owner of the Chair gallery in the town has been warned by police that she could be committing a public order offence after exhibiting a painting of a naked woman in the front window of her high street shop.
Officers went to the gallery after complaints that the painting, which features a naked woman wearing cowboy boots, her legs splayed to reveal a black triangle with pink wool on top, is not art but pornography.
Val Harris, the gallery’s owner, has refused to remove the work, which is part of an exhibition she curated by the artist Poppy Baynham and her sister.
Baynham, a third-year student at Central Saint Martins, part of the University of Arts London, said she was shocked by the reaction to her painting, which had been chosen for the window simply because it was the right proportion.
“They have said it’s pornography, which I can’t really wrap my head around,” she said. “I don’t know what kind of pornography they’ve been looking at, but it’s definitely not my painting.
“I’m a student in London and my art never gets any attention like this because London is obviously the hub of art,” Baynham added, musing that perhaps Hay-on-Wye, situated on the Powys-Herefordshire border, was less “open-minded”.
All her paintings were of the female body, she said. “It’s just expressing the female body and normalising the female body, because everyone sexualises it.
“I don’t want to take it down because it would go against everything I believe in.”
After the visit by police officers, a sign was put up in the window inviting people to take part in a live debate on Instagram. Baynham read aloud a statement defending the work: “Most straight women haven’t seen a vulva so I see why they might be scared of it and it is clear to me there must be a lot of straight women in Hay.
“I think also penises can be seen as comical while vulvas are only sexual. The reason why I paint the female body and not the male body is because I want the world to normalise these non-sexual body parts that 50% of the world have.”
Police had asked the painting be moved further inside the gallery, but Harris said she was “making a stand”. She said she was shocked to be told about the complaints, but that support online had been “massive” – “around 90% pro and 10% anti”, she said.
“This is a body of work made for this exhibition,” she said. “It’s called Party Time. It’s women having fun at a party, and one of them has chosen to take their clothes off.”
Harris added: “Everyone has got a right to say something. But the artist is just normalising the female body. She’s been working with the female body all her artistic life. And I didn’t put it in the window to shock. I put in because it was the right size for the window.”
Dyfed-Powys police said in a statement: “We can confirm that officers have attended the gallery. The neighbourhood policing team is monitoring the situation.”
A Hay council spokesperson said:“ Hay town council have not received a single complaint about the painting and were not aware of any differing opinions regarding the painting. No action is planned or being discussed.”
The painting is due to be removed on Sunday, when the week-long exhibition ends. Baynham said the reaction to it would now form part of her dissertation. “We are going to do an experiment and get a gallery in London to do the exact same thing and see the reaction in London and what people say and feel.”
