The Artists will be a mixture of  Artists and Handycraftsmen. All artforms will be represented.
We will try to make an interesting mixture of Spanish as well as other European Artists.
Our aim is to make the Gallery an interesting and everchanging forum for Art in all its aspects.

Roger Ayala. Habana, Cuba       Painter

The beautiful, flexible and inclusive human

The Cuban artist Roger Rodriguez Ayala was born in Pinar del Rio in Cuba in 1957 and now lives in Havana. He graduated from La Facultad de Arte y Letras de la Universidad de La Habana. 

Critics describes his art as naive, calm and full of tenderness, an important message for peace. In his world of art there is a great message of love with a very deep sense of innocence. Beauty and humanity shine through. Several of the paintings express a silent melancholy, a feeling that we in the western world, especially in the northern part, is a bit afraid of, but there is nothing wrong with this feeling so far that we dare to hold it. Or you could as well say thoughtfulness or pensiveness or awareness or whatever pops up, while you are having your conversations with the faces.

The paintings of expressive faces contain a duality of joy and sorrow, of light and dark, day and night, moon and sun, man and woman etc. It is probably this duality that makes the faces appear in a reflective expression and immediately captures the viewer in a dialogue constantly questioning who and what we are as human beings. We cover behind a mask, which you can also call our social skills, an external identity or self-perception, which we have largely built up from the outside world's expectations of us and in our quest for recognition and acceptance. 

But we are more than that. Each of us has some intrinsic qualities and characteristics that require to be realized. Ayala uses the butterfly as a symbol of freedom and longing to flourish and realize its true self. His use of bright colours is a signal of the coloured man, the colourful and many-faceted man, who cannot be captured in stereotypes or in brands. From a development perspective the butterfly undergoes a transformation or metamorphosis from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. This brings us on his message to realize our potentials. The better we are in our lives to find and develop the hidden sides of ourselves, the more beautiful, more flexible and inclusive we become. 

By thus putting us in our emotional register Ayala’s faces create a sort of dependence: we just have to see the next painting and the next and ... 

Pictures of Roger Ayala

 I missed out completely on bellows cameras and entered the sport with the advent of the SLR. I came into position of a Practica, almost the size of a brick and very much approaching the weight of one.

I became heavily involved in developing and printing my photos but only to the black and white level. It was the time of the first transistors and I put in a great deal of effort and time into designing and building electronic devices. These devices were to control the enlarger timing and to remotely and automatically control the camera. This was necessary because of the inability of wild life to sit still whilst I was behind the camera.

I toured Morocco with this camera and achieved some success with transparencies, few I think survive to date.

Life and career then took over and photography was placed on hold for many years. I never used the Practica again but on approaching retirement I perched a Nikon EM and produced a number of photographs that just, in my opinion, could be called pictures. By now digital photography was well on its way but at the time it was not easy to judge just how soon it would produce results equal to the then current colour film processes. I then made the mistake of buying a Nikon F60, true it was much lighter than all my earlier cameras but was soon outdated by the vast improvements in the digital process.

My first digital camera was no master piece but it was enough to indicate the possibilities of this process, giving as it does full control from pressing the button on the camera to producing the print with the aid of computer software. I am now happy with my two current cameras, a Nikon Coolpix L2 and a Sony Cyber-shot, either will fit in my shirt breast or sleeve pocket. Not having to carry the half brick at all times means that far more often when a good composition is in sight the camera is there to record it. Any qualification I may be judged to have has been gained only by observing and experimenting. When you get it right the result seems to be quite obvious, at least in ones own view. From this you learn.
John Haggis.
You can see more here

  Pictures of John Haggis

I started to sew when I was about 13 years of age and took lessons at school in dressmaking.
I have sewn my own dresses ever since.
From the age of 20 I stated to sew clothes for my family and my friends and over the years the dresses became more and more sophisticated.
For the past 5 to 10 years I have created many party dresses as well as wedding dresses.
I make clothes for both men, women and children.
The shown dresses are just samples to show the styles I design.
I make dresses to order from measure sheets.
You can see more here

You can see pictures of her dress here

As David Waterman has his own and very fulfilling webpage, we will here just put a link to his own story:

http://web.me.com/davidwaterman1/David_
Waterman_Photography/biography.html

Steve Godfrey was born in Lancashire , England in 1962.
 I’ve been a student of art all my life – my father taught me to draw when I was young and planted the initial seeds of inspiration. Throughout my life my interests have always been rooted in creativity.
This creative drive came to the fore in the late 80s when Steve trained as a royal Navy Photographer. Experience in this field broadened his outlook on the world and after completing his Navy career he went on to run a successful freelance photography business in Edinburgh for a further 10 years.
In his spare time Steve continued painting and studied oil painting at Edinburgh College of Art. He eventually succumbed to the draw of destiny and became a full time painter in 2004. Steve’s work can be found in many private collections throughout the world. He lives in Periana with his partner Midi and their young son Joe.
You can see more here

Pictures of Steve Godfrey

Three Dimensional Decoupage.

3 D Decoupage has been my hobby for many years. I broke away from the commercial
kits and started to produce my pictures from local scenes or any pictures with depth that attracted me.
3D Decoupage is to create a picture that has depth, color and shape, you should feel you could walk into or touch it. This effect is produced by using several copies of the same picture and then cutting and molding and building up so that the foreground is separated from the background.
The origins of 3 D Decoupage are obscure, but exotic lacquered furniture arrived from China in the 17^th Century. The effect was reproduced by simply gluing cut out Chinese prints on to furniture and varnishing them. French cabinet makers then improved on this by using more
delicate prints and coating them with many layers of varnish so that the pictures appeared to be inlaid. The term Decoupage comes from the French verb “decouper” meaning to cut out. Naturally these pictures were flat. It is not known  who thought of the idea of 3 D Decoupage but it first became popular with the Victorians who used slices of cork to separate the different elements of the picture.
You can see more here

Pictures of Pat Read

Chris Kajtorp was born in Stockholm in 1943. Her father was a painter and she started painting at an early age.
In 1956 she put on her first exhibition in the technique of Batik. At the age of 17, she studied art in Stockholm and after several small exhibitions in her home town and Stockholm she left Sweden and settled in Majorca in 1970.
She continued designing clothes including working for the musical “Hair” when the show appeared in Palma de Mallorca. In 1978-1979 Chris studied graphic arts in Sweden . She then spent her time travelling in Europe, but it was Spain that captured her passion. She has lived here for 26 years.
Since 2006 Chris has been living in Canillas de Albaida.
Her last exhibition was at the Molino de Hadriano in Cómpeta in 2007.
  You can see more here

Photo Album of Christina's works

Stefan van Drake from the USA burst into acrylic painting after taking 10 hours instruction from a Danish artist in Competa in 2005. Largely self-taught, van Drake has painted murals, collages, mixed media acrylics, abstracts and currently, plying his new skills in oils, painting local compesinos. Inspired by Goya, Van Gogh, Kandinsky and Mondrian, he also sculpts in alabaster as one of Moira Schepel's regular students.  In November last year, he studied oil painting in Mexico with his good friend and Spanish painter, Jaime Adan, who has himself twice exhibited in Competa. He also took evening classes in life drawing at Oxford in 2006. van Drake has worked as a professional photo-journalist for Minnesota 's largest daily newspaper and has exhibited his photographs, albeit many years ago. Some of his compesino pictures interpret his photographs. He also labored 27 years as a trial lawyer in Minnesota and another 11 as an award-winning investigative journalist in South Florida before adopting Andalusia as his home in 2004.
You can see more here

Photo Album of Stefan van Drake's works

Born in Copenhagen in 1948. Educated as a graphic printer.
Left the graphic trade and worked in the furniture business till 1994. In 1994 I retired due to illness and started to work intensively with my hobbies:
Photography and Computer design together with web pages.
I have been using different models of Olympus digital cameras and have at the moment  an E-520 with various optics.
I love walking in the Nature, especially in the morning light, and always bring my camera with me. My favorite motives are landscapes, birds, animals and the variety of light in the forest and at the beach. I play a lot with the settings of the camera to make the pictures look like I see things. This is my first exhibition, encouraged by Henrik to do so.
You can see more here

Photo Album of Bent's Photo

Moira Schepel. British, born in Tanzania, East Africa .
Taking Art as a final subject in high school. Moved to Holland and continued Art as a part time activity. Joined several workshops and intensive classes in pottery and sculpture.
Under the guidance of Karel Gomez, she took part in several exhibitions and formed her own studio for other artists and organized exhibitions and taught sculpture.
Now living in Spain , she teaches sculpture, and mosaic among other things. Her latest work is a statue for the village of Cómpeta which is going to be revealed on the 19^th. of July.  
You can see more here

Photo Album of Moira's works

 Educated as a Photographer in the early years. She has also written poems, short stories and a biography. She finally decided to move to Andalucía with her husband and take up her passion of painting.
Her “Photographic” style depicts Architecture, Landscapes, flowers and other objects.
She has now been painting for three years and find it very satisfying to express herself  this way.
She is now a member of an art group and has exposed her work in Torre del Mar.
You can see more here

Photo Album of Giselle's works

Jimmi Wilmot                             Photographer,  Nerja

Mitch France , Photographer, Canillas de Albaida.

Mitch France hails from yorkshire, England and has lived in Canillas de Albaida with his wife, Chris for the last 6 years.
They ran a design company in the UK for many years specializing in design and production of brochures.
After travelling a lot in Europe and USA they settled here in Andalucía and Mitch is now working with his hobby: Photography, embracing fully the new technological advances in digital photography and printing.
You can see more here

Photo Album of Mitch France

I have now been woodturning for almost 15 years and make a wide variety of items, both functional and artistic.  
Since moving to Spain nearly 4 years ago, I have concentrated mainly on the artistic style and use, where possible the local woods in the area. In producing items I try to make the best use of the natural grain and beauty of the wood. It is most satisfying to begin with what can be a rather dirty and ugly looking peace of wood and then turn it into something quite beautiful.
You can see more here

Photo Album of Peters works

Chris France, Glass painter, Canillas de Albaida.

Chris France comes from Yorkshire , England and moved to Andalucía with her husband 6 years ago.
She is educated in textile and graphic design and worked with her husband as such for a number of years.
She has now started to produce painted glass jars with lead trims as a hobby and also as a way to recycle all the used cans in a normal household. She started her production for her own supply and use and it has since moved on from there.
You can see more here

Photo Album of Chris works

Born in 1938 in Copenhagen , Denmark . I have been taking photos since I was 10 years of age. As a teenager I shared a darkroom with my father and two brothers. The black and white photos from back then still stands strongly in my mind. To me photography is a way to write my diary. The result is 100 private albums of history.
My photos were always taken for my own pleasure, but now I feel that I should try to put some of them on exhibition. I am very fascinated of Humans and the light from the sun, especially the Nordic light.
You can see more here

Photo Album of Asger's Photo