“ ​As a student I was totally committed to sculpture.  A few years later I began printmaking and - little by little - that medium took precedence over sculpture. I started painting twenty years ago, and I’m still painting.” ​​​​​
Presently the medium is watercolour because I love the immediacy of the paint - the brush doesn’t hurt my hand like a woodcutting chisel, nor does the water that sits beside me in an old jam jar require any chemicals, as etching did. A beautiful, light sheet of paper slips easily into a drawer - a two meter high sculpture demands a lot more room
I drew all the time as a child, but at school I didn’t realize that it was possible to have a career as an artist. We were taught only about deceased artists, so I thought they didn’t exist anymore. When I had to decide what I wanted to do after school I went into the library and looked at a dictionary of careers. Fortunately, art begins with an “A “…..and so I went to art college and never looked back. I never wanted to do anything else.
I moved to Cútar in 2002. My home is right at the bottom of the village near the primary school. I hope I never have to move again because I love it here. I like going down to a local bar some mornings for a coffee because I don’t know any other place on earth that has such wonderful coffee and such an alluring atmosphere as a Spanish bar
I  gaze at the landscape about Cútar and paint what I see - perhaps a pomegranate by the fence, or a bird snooping about in a bush. My paintings reflect my delight and concern for the brilliance, diversity and precious fragility of our natural world. ​

​I love gazing at 17th century Indian miniature paintings in books or on the internet. I´ve made several copies including the one featured here - a very intricate painting of a woman talking to a bird. This is my ideal of a perfect outer and inner landscape created by the mind and hand of an unknown artist. I feel at home with this painting because the woman is in an environment that is exactly like the one which inspires me. ​​​
A Yogini,  Copy of an early C17th Indian watercolour of the Deccani school.

​Ann Westley is an English artist born in 1948 in Kettering, Northamptonshire. From 1967 – 1970 she studied Fine Art Sculpture at the West of England University, Bristol, and in 1970 won a Gulbenkian Scholarship in Sculpture and spent some time in Rome. In 1981 she received a Gulbenkian Printmaking Award and is the author of ´Relief Printmaking´ - a handbook on printmaking for students and artists. She has taught printmaking at several art colleges and has exhibited sculptures, prints and paintings in the UK, Europe and the USA.