Bylchau: A Solo Exhibition by Elfyn Lewis

St David's Hall Gallery, Cardiff

Friday, February 19 to Saturday, March 27

"Art is like music, if it makes your foot dance you shouldn't question it," says abstract painter Elfyn Lewis as he adds another layer of magic and mystery to his latest painting.

Music has played an important part in Elfyn's work from the mid-90s when some of his early paintings reached a worldwide audience on the covers of chart-topping Welsh pop band Catatonia's covers.

Even his latest exhibition Bylchau, which launches on Friday, February 19, at St David's Hall Galleries, Cardiff, takes its title from a song by a Welsh band.

Bylchau is the first solo exhibition since the Porthmadog-born painter won one of the most acclaimed art prizes in Wales, the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod in August, and also his first in five years. There's a feeling that his time has come. Even contemporary painter Iwan Bala describes him as an "artist at the height of his game."

"My more recent work has become about enjoying the paint itself and that seems to work for me. You've got to keep trying to develop as an artist and winning prizes not only boosts my confidence but also gives others confidence to buy and collect my work," says Elfyn.

The work has changed dramatically in over the past 14 years since the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff fine art student's early paintings of fragmented faces were used on the covers of five of Catatonia's early singles and their debut album Way Beyond Blue. At the time the student artist shared a house with the band's lead singer Cerys Matthews and songwriter Mark Roberts. His style has gradually developed into the complex yet enthralling swathes of vivid acrylic colours which make up his more recent paintings.

Although abstract his work is rooted in his Welsh landscape and heritage. The names, whether derived from ancient Welsh place names or typically Welsh Dylan Thomas-esque nicknames, give each piece a sense of familiarity and belonging. For example Bylchau shares its title with a song by Y Ffyrc, his friend Mark Roberts' current band. Its lyrics about leaving north Wales and heading for the capital city of Cardiff, has resonance with Lewis' own journey. Other works include Pyrgad named in tribute to a friend's farm and Pwll Melyn from a famous 15th Century Welsh battle between Owain Glyndwr and Henry VI's army.

Lewis' style uses 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, underlies the confidence and skill of its creator. He uses trowels and even a foot-long derby which builders use to screed concrete floors to drag the paint across the boards. The results, be it 10 layers or 200 layers, gives the work a meditative kind of fascination. As you stare shapes shift, faces emerge from the paint spatters, stars shoot across black night skies, molten lava flows from volcanoes. And all this despite the artist being unable to distinguish between tones and shades due to his colour blindness.

For Bylchau Lewis is working on a series of 50 new paintings for the show. He's going through what he calls his "black phase". Whereas the blues, reds and browns of his earlier work evoke images of horizons, landscapes and mountains, these new darker paintings are more about explosions of light and bursts of colour. Lewis now has the confidence to make art for arts sake, sentiments shared by his Abstract Expressionist forefathers. It's also interesting to mention that Lewis is part of a direct artistic lineage to the Abstract Expressionist movement, Lewis was taught by Peter Prendergast who was taught by Frank Auerbach and this shows through the work.

Already his diary for 2010 is almost full. A production grant from the Arts Council of Wales is buying him time to create two Exhibitions both called Gestiana (named after the last boat to be built in his home town of Porthmadog) scheduled for Oriel Canfas, Cardiff and the Cynon Valley Museum, Aberdare, this summer.

Lewis says, who claims his style is 90 per cent process, nine per cent skill and one per cent luck. "But it's that luck that can rescue a painting from the constant brink of disaster. I can become quite manic when I'm painting. I put on one layer, then another then leave it. With some of my final pieces I try to get a feeling of sky, peninsula and water with clouds and explosions. The paint dripping over is all part of it. It's haphazard, the throwing of paint is very intuitive, then the final stroke where you just bring like the clouds or sun bursting through add the subtlety."

"There's a thing with art that we need explanations. Sometimes it's as simple as why do you fall in love?"

Ruth Cayford, Exhibition Curator at St David's Hall, Cardiff, says: "It is exciting to show a painter that is so genuine about his work. Elfyn is an example that when an artist truly expresses himself, that honesty adds magic and intensity to the work. As he says himself so often, some things can't be described they have to be experienced, I believe this to be true of his work."

What others say:

"He discovers a contemporary relevance and a highly focused process approach to produce beautiful objects that, whiles being abstract and formal, are also able to evoke elements of landscape and memory.

An artist at the height of his game, his work having evolved gradually over a period of years."

Artist Iwan Bala, selector of the National Eisteddfod Exhibition 2009.

"He strives for the most heightened of optical effects, through extreme colour combinations."

Curator of Lewis' Shared Earth Exhibition , Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine

"Lewis's work places him firmly within the Abstract Expressionist school. It conveys layered and complicated realities with a devastating simplicity."

Writer Sian Hughes

ELFYN LEWIS BIOGRAPHY

Born in Porthmadog, north Wales.

In 1987 he studied art on a foundation course at Gwynedd Technical College, Bangor, where he was taught by well-known Welsh artist Peter Prendergast

In 1992 he finished his three-year degree course at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston

He graduated from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff with an MA in Fine Art in 1998.

During his early days in Cardiff shared a house with another north Walian friend Mark Roberts and his then-girlfriend Cerys Matthews who fronted the successful Nineties band Catatonia.

He also created three CD covers for the cult Welsh indie band Big Leaves.

In 2000 he was awarded a career development grant from the Arts Council of Wales to work in New York. He has won various prizes including the Gold Medal and Purchas Prize at the National Eisteddfod 2009.

He has represented Welsh art in festivals in Tokyo and most recently Festival Interceltique in France