A FORMER commander for the Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service has turned his attention to art and poetry.

Roger Bennett, who lives in Penrhyncoch, left his commander role for Ceredigion county prior to promotion to a strategic role at Service Headquarters, and retired from the fire service in 2010.

The 58-year-old has always been able to draw and paint, but mainly drew houses and churches and completed some computer graphic art.

But it was through a charity in Aberystwyth that he discovered his artistic talents went further.

Having suffered with poor mental health for many years, Roger joined Mind Aberystwyth in 2015, and it was then that his true artistic journey began, picking up charcoal on the first week and pastels in the second.

Roger is an art student with Lifelong Learning at Aberystwyth University, where he has just completed an Introduction to Art course, having previously attended watercolour and separate pastel drawing courses.

Roger predominantly paints landscapes and seascapes using watercolour, pastels, and acrylics.

More recently he has tried his hand at portraiture and moved to using Alkyd oil paints and ink.

He said that not being a commercial artist means he is not driven to replicate work in a certain style or to use certain artistic mediums. He is just as happy with a tin of watercolour paints in a coffee shop as he is with using acrylics while sat at his writing bureau. His artwork is traditional, or uses pointillism, or mono-printing, or continuous line ‘blind drawing’, or mixed media, and sometimes incorporates poetry into the image.

It can be seascapes, landscapes, cityscapes, people or animals. There is no set theme and no set medium, he said.

Earlier this year, Nanteos Mansion announced the appointment of Roger as artist in residence.

Roger’s artwork can be found at artrba17 on Instagram.

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