Since moving to Ceredigion, we’ve discovered so many incredible Welsh artists. The latest in that line is Ifor Pritchard. I adore his expressive, impasto style; thick strokes of oil paint confidently applied with brush and knife to the canvas.

Pritchard (1940-2010) was a painter whose subject matter consisted mainly of the slate quarrying industry that he saw around him growing up in Carmel, Gwynedd in North Wales. He created portraits of the quarrymen (at work and at the pub), the quarry managers, the work horses, the machinery.

For many years, he worked as an art teacher mainly at Ysgol Sir Huw Owen in Caernarfon from where he retired in 1992. It wasn’t until 2007 that he mounted his first exhibition (of 30 works) in Glynllifon, south of Caernarfon.

Memories are my inspiration. Memories of a childhood in the village of Carmel in the ’40s. This is a village situated within a stone’s throw of the Dyffryn Nantlle slate quarries and was, therefore, a village that was almost totally dependent on the slate. After a lifetime of producing and teaching art, memories now transport me back to those early days. It is an endeavour to depict an extremely claustrophobic life that was, in the main, based on the quarry and the chapel. I am only interested in the human aspect of the industry. I have slate, but not the dust, in my veins.

Craig yr Oesoedd/True Grit by Myrddin ap Dafydd is an 80-page, bi-lingual study of some of his works.

Image credits:
Artnet | Mutual Art