[4] He began work at the age of 14 as a miner,[3] but this lasted only for three years, until the death of his father in 1923, which deeply affected Evans.
[6] In keeping with his mother's wishes, he left mining and became a railwayman, eventually finding a job as a Great Western Railway engine driver for coal trains in the Cynon Valley.
Whereas some modern Welsh artists had portrayed colliers as heroes, Evans shows them typically as victims.
Writing for The Independent, Meic Stephens thought that Evans' sympathy for the miners granted them "an iconic power".
[5] He explained many of his paintings in terms of biblical imagery and reported that he often saw angels and the spirits of the departed in his house.
For example, in Entombed - Jesus in the Midst (from 1974) at the National Museum Wales, the Christ is preaching to a group of miners.
In Black Avalanche (from 1978), Evans's response to the 1966 Aberfan Disaster, he shows a policeman carrying the body of a child, surrounded by grieving parents.
Evans's life and work was examined in the BBC Radio Wales programme All Things Considered in 2010.