Efa Lois

Efa Lois is a Welsh artist and writer. Her work searches the depths of Welsh folklore, folk customs, language and culture. Originally from Aberystwyth and fluent in both Welsh and English, the Welsh landscape – linguistic, cultural and physical – has shaped and informed her work.

Her art has always involved an element of storytelling, and is often focused around Welsh stories, traditions and myth. She has also written about Welsh cultural identity, architecture and art, as well as Welsh women’s history. In 2020, Efa received a Literature Wales New Writer’s Bursary, in order to further develop her work on the forgotten women of Welsh history.

She is interested in cultural identity, women’s stories, and ‘llawr gwlad’ folklore, and what these tell us about the Wales of the past. In 2019, Efa began her Welsh Witches project, which has since documented over 90 witches from Welsh folklore – the strange, the magnificent, and the forgotten. Her first book Gwrachod Cymru | Welsh Witches is the fruit of that labour.

Photo credit: Leia Morrison