Gareth Griffith, a multimedia artist working in 2 and 3D from Gwynedd won the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the 2025 Wrexham National Eisteddfod. Gareth presented five items for the selectors to consider for the National Eisteddfod’s annual exhibition Y Lle Celf. The three judges, Bedwyr Williams, Angela Davies and Anya Painstil visited his studio.  The selectors invited him to extend his submission so that it reflected his studio practice.  Here, you can enjoy over twenty of his works, as it was shown at the Eisteddfod in August.

Gareth grew up in Caernarfon, before studying at Liverpool College of Art in the early 1960s. After a period teaching at a primary school in that city and spending two years in Jamaica, he returned to Wales and spent most of his career as an art teacher in schools in the Bangor area. He has lived in Mynydd Llandygai for forty years. After retirement, he built a new studio in his garden, and has since produced some of the best works of his career. Today, he is one of the most prominent artists working in Wales. His work is represented in the collections of Amgueddfa Cymru, the Walker Art Gallery, and the Arts Council Collection.

Gareth talks about some of the themes in his work;

“I’ve been inspired by a variety of things. I look for connections between the construction I create and what I paint – there’s a symbiosis between the two. 

 Adapting to the circumstances we are in seems more relevant than ever in my life. There is a narrative that runs throughout my work that can only belong to me. 

Inevitably, there are political references in my work. My time in Jamaica and my experience of living in a highly polarised and often dangerous post-colonial country is similar to the current situation affecting all of our lives.”

Gareth is also exhibiting in Storiels’ cabinet – a space for artists to respond to Storiel’s museum collections through contemporary art.

Photograph of Gareth’s work at the Eisteddfod by Dewi Tannatt Lloyd.