Picasso has inspired artist Morton's Ruthin exhibition

The impressive collection of drawings and paintings by Morton Roberts, 74, will be showcased at Ruthin Library between Monday, October 3 and Friday, December 23 to raise money for Parkinson’s UK Cymru. 

The former Ysgol Brynhyfryd pupil, who was born in Denbigh in 1947, has opened up about the challenges of living with the condition ahead of the exhibition’s launch. 

The former agent for Universal Leather Goods studied art at Wrexham Technical College, where he earned a diploma, and studied for a degree at Newport College of Art and Sculpture.

He has dedicated the exhibition, which has been sponsored by Mann Roberts Solicitors, to his late wife Heather, as well as to his daughters, his family and everyone who has Parkinson’s.

The exhibition is influenced by Picasso, and features drawings and paintings of moving water, old buildings, landscapes, seascapes and boulders.

Many of the pieces are of areas around Ruthin and Bala.

READ MORE: Calls made to reduce speed limit on popular Denbighshire road

There are over 40 symptoms of Parkinson’s.

From a tremor or stiffness, to problems with sleep and mental health, everyone’s experience is different.

The father of six, and grandfather of eight, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2016, said: “One little aspect is, you wonder how your hand can get into a certain shape when you don’t even know that you’re doing it.

"It’s weird. I do have a tremor, but I can concentrate and stop it.

"Then it will come back. When I have it I really do shake.

"I can’t walk very far or do much. 

“I slur my speech and I get quite bad pains, particularly in my legs. My shoulders are in a bad way.

"I want to sleep all the time because I get very very tired. Some of the medication that I’m on gives me flaky skin.

"That’s a common thing. It really is awful because it makes you very sore. It’s not nice."

Morton Roberts with artwork (Image: Picture: Parkinson's UK Cymru)

On his love of art, he said: “I was always into art, ever since I was a child.

“I spent five years in art college where I learned about things like perspective, colour, proportion. I did a lot of sculpture. 

“Picasso is an artist I really admire. He’s like The Beatles of the art world in the 1900s.

"He arranged the notes to be played in different places. Everything has the same notes, but it depends where you play them. 

“Picasso changed the overall perception of how we look at things.

READ MORE: Ambitious £20m project set to create more than 100 new jobs in Denbigh

"So did Paul Cézanne, and then you can go on to Joan Miró later on, Roy Lichtenstein, it goes on.

"But Picasso was my linchpin for the change in what people call modern art. He evolved art. It was very clever. 

“I went to his retrospective exhibition in Paris for a week and saw a quarter of it.

"It filled Paris. It was amazing. His output was unbelievable."

Mr Roberts said he got back into art when he was living in Betws y Coed.

"It’s very beautiful there and I did some quick drawings of local scenes and sold them to the tourists, who seemed to love them. Then I became a bit more serious about things," he added.

Artwork by Morton Roberts (Image: Picture: Parkinson's UK Cymru)

“It stimulated me and I started doing some painting as well at the time. Art is something I have to do.

"It’s a compulsion, it always has been ever since I was quite young, but with having children and having a young family, the compulsion of making a living, I stopped. 

“I had a lot of pictures and drawings knocking around and my sister happened to suggest that I do an exhibition. 

“I started doing a lot of local drawings of around Ruthin and Bala. Some of the villages around Bala, they’ve got a lot of decaying old cottages, derelicts, really, and I became fascinated with those. I did a lot of drawing up there. 

“I’ve always liked boulders and stone and rocks.

"Everything I’ve drawn really has a reference to stone and rock really, apart from some of the last few drawings of around Ruthin. I’m a visual person rather than spoken.”