Gestiana, an exhibition of work by Elfyn Lewis, opens today (Friday June 4) at Oriel Canfas Gallery 44a Glamorgan Street, Canton, Cardiff.
Originally from Porthmadog but based in Cardiff for the last 15 years, he was the winner of the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the 2009 National Eisteddfod and is widely recognised as one of the top contemporary artists working in Wales today.
Eighteen new paintings by Lewis are being shown, deliberately unframed. He hopes people will thereby be able to get closer to his work, and appreciate the heavy layered texture and 3-dimensional effects he has created, with paint flowing and coagulating not only on the canvas itself but cascading over the sides of the paintings. Undoubtedly objects of beauty, the paintings in this show are nonetheless experimental and demanding.
Lewis’s paintings might be described as abstract landscapes, and this idea is reinforced by his habit of naming individual works after specific locations in Wales. He says that these names have resonance for him personally; they are commonly links to memories of his own past. Nonetheless he seeks to empower viewers to relax and create their own patterns in these images, rather than dictating their meanings himself. The ancient and beautiful Welsh names which he attaches to this highly contemporary and challenging work, serve to root his art in landscape and tradition, but they only suggest possible meanings rather than determining them.
With this exciting exhibition Oriel Canfas Gallery, although it seems to be sadly undervalued, is proving itself yet again to be one of the best spaces in Cardiff for showing the work of contemporary artists. Gestiana runs throughout June, until July 3rd.
Photograph: Elfyn Lewis – Mynydd Tarw
By Peter Davies
