Elfyn Lewis was born in Porthmadog, North Wales, and now lives and works in Cardiff. Over the course of his 25 -year career he has won numerous awards, including the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 2009 and the Welsh Artist of the Year award in 2010. He is also a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy, Conwy. His work is held in numerous public and private collections.

Elfyn builds his paintings with many layers, pushing paint around, scraping it back and allowing it to find its own rhythm and direction. The process is always technically daring — a constant enquiry, a pushing at limits — and it gives the work a rare excitement and energy. As layers accumulate they almost cover each other, but traces gather at the edges; there are always remains of what went before and what lies beneath.

A love of place runs as a clear strand throughout the work too — though mostly abstract, the paintings hint at glimpses and memories of landscape. They are full of atmospherics: shadows and light, wind and rain and electricity. But there are internal, psychological atmospherics too — within the same image the mood may darken or clear, contradictory emotions coexist, and the present overlays but cannot obliterate the past.