Exhibitions

Elfyn Lewis is Welsh Artist of the Year 2010

Welsh Artist of the Year 2010 Exhibition runs at St David's Hall, Cardiff from Sunday, June 20 until August 6

Cardiff-based abstract artist Elfyn Lewis has beaten off competition from 400 other artists to win Welsh Artist of the Year 2010.

The title, with its £2000 prize, is the second major win in 12 months for the Porthmadog-born painter. Last summer he also won the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod. It's also the first time that a painter has won the overall prize since Sally Moore was named Welsh Artist of the Year 2005.

Judge and last year's winning artist Tim Freeman, said of Lewis' winning acrylic painting Pwll Crochan: "The balance of chaos and harmony is so well articulated in the work that it offers a delicacy of detail and fragility often missing in process based abstraction. His practice draws on abstract painterly tradition while remaining entirely contemporary, and offers us, as viewers, highly articulate moments of visually poetry and contemplation."

Inspired by his love of the landscape of Wales and ancient Welsh place names Lewis' abstract paintings use thick smears of paint, layered on and left, in some cases, to drip over the edge of the board to create an almost sculptural textured landscape.

Pwll Crochan is typical of his current, darker style of painting which focus on explosions of light and bursts of colour.

Surprised by his win, Lewis said; "Winning this prize gives me a great sense of self-belief and confidence in my work. It was nice to be chosen to be part of the exhibition but having the approval of well-known panel art practitioners gives me the momentum I need to continue my current style of work."

He added that he had his five-year-old son Hamish to thank for his decision to enter Pwll Crochan in the competition.

"I had five potential paintings and I couldn't decide which one I should enter. But I showed them to Hamish and he chose Pwll Crochan. It's a bold, positive painting. Hamish likes to call himself an artist and on this occasion he made the right choice."
Since winning the Eisteddfod prize last July Lewis has staged three solo exhibitions in Wales including Bylchau at St David's Hall, Cardiff in March. He was also invited to show his work at the relaunch exhibition for Oriel Mostyn (Mostyn Gallery) in Llandudno in May.

Currently Oriel Canfas, Canton, Cardiff, is showing Gestiana, a collection of 15 of his new paintings.

Fellow judge Iwan Bala added; "Elfyn Lewis, has reached a point of sophistication in his work that is re-enforced by his winning of the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Bala in 2009. We hope that gaining these two ‘titles' will help his career develop and prosper."

Seven other main prizes were presented by broadcaster Nicola Heywood-Thomas at the awards ceremony, which was held at St David's Hall, Cardiff, on Sunday, June 20.

Former head teacher and mother-of-two Emily Jenkins won the Runner-up and Sculpture Prize with her politically-inspired lustre-glazed ceramic pieces Right To Return, which represent the removal of the Palestinian people from their ancient olive and lemon groves by the Israeli settlers.

Judge Iwan Bala said: "Emily presents us with deceptively evocative sculptures that at first sight seem innocuous, table top ornaments, but delve into the themes and symbolism of the work, and you realize it's currency as impassioned political comment."

The award for Photography deservedly went to Mold-based photographer Llinos Lanini of Mold for Siop Y Pentre, a portrait of 78-year-old corner shop owner known only as "Betty".

Richard Monahan won the Drawing Prize for Butterfly Composition With Monster, a pen and ink drawing using dolls house wallpaper and retired UWIC lecturer Tom Piper won the printmaking prize with his digital print The Healing of Deacon Justian.

The New Media Prize was awarded to Gemma Cop for her six-minute film Autonomy, Student Prize went to Swansea Metropolitan University fine art student Phil Lambert for his painting Spectrum Series Yellow (Jouessance) and one of last year's highly commended artists Ashraf Hanna won the Applied Arts category with his carved ceramic vase Collapsed Form.

Exhibition curator Ruth Cayford said: "It's great for the competition that an artist of Elfyn Lewis' stature has won the title. What's exciting about his work is his ambition. We selected one of his pieces for the exhibition last year, but in the last 12 months his work has grown and there's a real intensity and ambition to his current work.

Some people in the art world say painting is dead, but in Wales there is a new painting renaissance and Elfyn Lewis is part of that revival."

Elfyn's wining entry will form the centre piece of the Welsh Artist of the Year Exhibition 2010, which runs at St David's Hall, Cardiff, until August 6. The exhibition features the work of all the prize winners plus more than 80 other pieces to make the shortlist.

Other well-known artists features in the exhibition include two former winners painter Brendan Stuart Burns and ceramicist Walter Keeler, painters Corrie Chiswell, Neale Howells and Jacqueline Alkema, photographer Patricia Aithie, performance artists Holly Davey, Rabab Ghazoul and international performance artist Andre Stitt.

WINNERS IN FULL

Overall Winner and Painting Prize:

Elfyn Lewis, Porthmadog

Title of exhibit: Pwll Crochan

Runner Up and Sculpture Prize

Emily Jenkins, Cardiff

Title of exhibit: Right To Return Ceramic with lustre glazes

Drawing:

Richard Monahan, Swansea

Title of exhibit: Butterfly Composition With Monster (pen, ink and masking tape on paper and dolls house wallpaper)

Photography

Llinos Lanini, Yr Wyddgrud, Mold

Title of exhibit: Siop Y Pentre

Printmaking

Tom Piper, Cardiff

Title of exhibit: The Healing of Deacon Justian (digital print)

New Media

Gemma Copp, Swansea

Title of exhibit: Autonomy (film)

Student:

Phil Lambert, Cardiff

Title of exhibit: Spectrum Series Yellow (jouessance) oil and acrylic on canvas

Applied Arts

Ashraf Hanna, Haverford West

Title of exhibit: Collapsed Form (Ceramic)

Highly commended

Jacqueline Alkema, Cardiff

Title of exhibit: The Gift (oil on canvas)

Christine Jones, Swansea

Title of exhibit: Vessels (pair of)

James Morris, Llanbedr

Title of exhibit: Dinorwic Quarry (photograph)

Sarah Ball, Usk

Title of exhibit: Portrait Manmade Series (oil)

Pictures of selected entries available

Notes to editors

The Welsh Artist of the Year was founded during the millennium year to promote and celebrate the wealth of artistic ability in Wales. Originally intended as a one-off event, it is now in its 10th year.

The competition was open to any artists over the age of 18, living and working in Wales, and any Welsh artists living in the UK.

Judging Panel:

Renowned Welsh painter Iwan Bala; Jane Phillips, director of the Mission Gallery, Swansea; Lynne Crompton, curator of Oriel Q, Narberth, Tim Freeman winner of Welsh Artist of the Year 2009 and Ruth Cayford, curator of the Welsh Artist of the Year Exhibition.

Elfyn Lewis Biog

Born in Porthmadog, north Wales. In 1987 he studied art at Gwynedd Technical College, Bangor, where he was taught by well-known Welsh artist Peter Prendergast. Fellow students included Gruff Rhys and Dafydd Ieuan of the Welsh band Super Furry Animals. In 1998 he graduated from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff with an MA in Fine Art. He created the covers for Welsh band Catatonia's first five singles and debut album Way Beyond Blue, whom he shared a house with. He has won various prizes including the Gold Medal and Purchase Prize at the National Eisteddfod 2009. He has represented Welsh art in festivals in Tokyo and France. In 2009 he was the principal artist representing Wales at the Euro Celtic Art Festival, part of the Festival Interceltique the world's largest Celtic Art's Festival. He has exhibited throughout the UK and worldwide and his work is represented in both public and private collections

For further information and images; please contact Ruth Cayford on 029 2087 8706 / rcayford@cardiff.gov.uk or Alison Stokes on 07817 990771/ a.stokes2@sky.com

Ruth Cayford

Exhibition Officer

Foyer Galleries

St David's Hall

The Hayes

Cardiff

CF10 ISH

rcayford@cardiff.gov.uk

029 20878706

Robert Greetham

January 15th-12th February

Semana Santa

Semana Santa is an exhibition of recent wotk by South Wales- based photographer and artist Robert Greetham. Since 2004 he has been  woking on an ongoing multi- project  based  on Sema Santa  or Holy Week in Spain. Semana Santa is celebrated throughout Spain every Easter; in cities such as Malaga and Sevillie the scale of the opulence of the celebrations is breathtaking  with thousands of pople taking part in highly formailised processions. Once of the most striking feature  of the processions are the Penitentes; tall hooded figures whose identitities remain unknown. Sometimes mistakenly confused with the Ku Klux Klan, they are nevertheless mysterious and occasionally forbidden presences who not only demonstrate the continuity of the past within the present but also the enduring power of ritual, tradition and faith. Pervading all is the head mix of insense drums and devotional song. The exhibition, which included photographs, paintings and mixed-media pieces also reflects Greetham’s fascination with the symbol and found objects as Cutural signifiers.

EIRIAN LLWYD- An Exhibition of recent prints January 15th - February 12th

Eirian seriously began to pursue her career as an artist in 1997 when she began a part time degree course in Coleg Menai, Bangor. She transferred to a full time course in UWIC Cardiff two years later, and graduated in Fine Art in 2001. Whilst at Cardiff, she began her interest in printmaking under the encouragement of her art tutor, Tom Piper. Since graduating, she has been a full time artist/printmaker. Eirian has exhibited extensively throughout Wales, Ireland and beyond.

Artist Statement

"Most of my prints are to do with a sense of place and have been inspired by Anglesey and the impact of moving to the island had on me. There are a significant number of prehistoric and Celtic relics on Anglesey reminding us of our roots and place in history and how a people and identity and language can survive. I enjoy the challenge and possibilities that printmaking offers me as an artist. I also find inspiration in poetry, most especially the works of Professor Gwyn Thomas.

I use a range of traditional printmaking processes such as etching on copper, colograph, stone lithography, woodcut, linocut and monoprint".

Bylchau.

February 19th – March 27th

A powerful exhibition of the work of the recipient of the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, 2009.
His surfaces are layered with paint that overflows, dripping. Congested, thick impasto paint has been pushed and forced to create a painting, which is also an object of desire. These paintings are layered time after time until the upper layer explodes and transforms from its volcanic creation into a vivid landscape. These are eruptions of colour and beauty intended to transfix the viewer.

Iwan Bala states that Lewis ‘Is at the height of his game- his paintings are poised at an interesting juncture, where the boundary between the painting as illusion and the painting as object is blurred, but still active. Beautiful and original artefacts are the result of his constant engagement with these elements, and with the material of paint and surface. The result can be seen as a form of landscape, or an object of sculptural interest, or a lush and often intense examination of colour fields and forms’

There will also be a craft showcase of the work of Lowri Davies- the recipient for the Gold Medal for Craft and Design 2009 at the National Eisteddfod for Wales.

ELFYN LEWIS, ALCHEMIST.

Painting; that direct engagement with the materials of it, that total involvement with colour, has at times been side-lined by the new media of film, video, photography, installation and everything you can think of. But painters still work, paintings are still made and account for the greatest majority of fine art sold in galleries throughout the world. Painting still speaks directly, through the eyes and into the soul.
‘Do you think the imitation of natural colours in representing flesh and drapery is of little importance? This, the marble sculptor cannot achieve, nor express the gracious glance of black and azure eyes, shining with their rays of love. He cannot show the colour of blonde hair, nor the glint of armour, nor a dark night, nor a storm at sea with bolts of lightning, nor a town on fire, nor the rosy colour of early dawn with its rays of gold and purple: in short, [the sculptor] cannot represent sky, sea, earth, mountains, woods, meadows, gardens, rivers, towns or houses, all of which the painter is able to do'
This Italian Renaissance statement virtually lays out an agenda for the future of Western painting and its emphasis on colour as a means of representing the natural world. But this is not the only way colour is used in painting. Elfyn Lewis has chosen a singular path in that traditional medium of painting, finding within it a contemporary relevance and a highly focused ‘process' approach to produce beautiful objects that, whilst being abstract and formal, are also able to evoke elements of landscape and memory. The series of work which won him the Gold Medal for Fine Art at The National Eisteddfod of Wales in Bala in 2009 showed him at the height of his ‘game' and succeeding in overturning that much quoted old chestnut of abstract expressionism; ‘what you see is what you get'.
In Lewis' work there is, of course, ‘what you see', that is unavoidable; thick layers of paint, congealing at the edges, overflowing the restrictions of the square or oblong canvas. There is an almost edible scrumptiousness about this paint. But ‘what you get' is not always reliant on the materiality of this paint, but on the patterns that the human brain (the viewer) organizes into a narrative, into the contours of a landscape, or an evocation of a winter's day.
The great Scottish painter Alan Davie has said of his own work; In painting as in alchemy, one is involved in a magical transmutation of matter into an indefinable spiritual essence, and like the alchemists, I have in the end reached some enlightenment in the realization that my work entails a kind of symbolic self involvement in the very process of life itself. And when the magic happens, the base materials have become pure gold.
Elfyn Lewis might not put it exactly like that, but when his process of working is succeeding, when the ‘magic' takes place, the results are the same; pure gold.

LOWRI DAVIES

February 19th – March 27th

Lowri Davies’ Welsh heritage is a major source of inspiration. Vibrant illustrations of birds, ‘traditional’ landscapes, floral and fauna adorn her own distinct bone china tableware designs of tea sets, vessels and vases. These reference typical china displays on Welsh dressers and ceramic souvenirs.

Recent production techniques using bone china are influenced by her period of study on the MA in Ceramic Design course at Staffordshire University.