ABOUT THE ARTIST
   By Dory Shakiba

Jane Elizabeth Gomis was born in Nottingham, in the Midlands, England. She was very prolific as a child in the art field, spending most of her free time drawing, along with her two younger sisters, on the reverse side of rolls of wallpaper, which their mother provided them with to quench the girls´ insatiable need for drawing paper. Jane went on to excel in art during her school years and one of her designs was chosen, as a 12 year old schoolgirl, as the cover of the Programme for the annual Carol Concert. She also won a prize at the same school for her presentation of drawings in the school Hobbies Competition. From the two secondary schools, which Jane attended in Nottinghamshire, she progressed to Mansfield College of Art.

Jane spent the early part of her life until her early twenties in her native Midlands where she grew up with a love of the countryside, animals and the arts. Her life suddenly changed when she took a temporary job in the Balearic Islands aged 22 years and met her husband to be. She returned briefly to England for a few years with her husband, but in 1975 she left England for good for Spain, where she has spent her life ever since. She lived for several years in the Balearic Islands, then the Canary Islands until finally she settled with her husband and four children in Southern Spain where she still lives and works.

During her early years in Spain, on the Island of Ibiza in the Balearic Islands, Jane, having produced a son and a daughter, returned to her art and began to paint the beautiful objects that surrounded her. This resulted in a small local exhibition where some of her work was sold. Until she settled in Andalusia, and had borne two more sons, Jane did not return to painting. But she became so inspired by her beautiful surroundings and the enchanting rural scenes, she was again moved to take up her brushes. She also attended the Mijas Art Centre, where she was taught by two wonderful teachers, Luella Ramsey and Alan Burden. At this time, she experimented in a vast array of different mediums, and it was during this period that she was drawn to watercolours and began to paint in her familiar pen and watercolour style. She has taken part in many exhibitions up and down the Costa del Sol, where she has sold many of her paintings, including watercolours and oils. She is regularly asked to take commissions for watercolours of the homes of local residents and home-owners. One of her designs on porcelain was commissioned by the Bentley Drivers´ Club.

Many of her watercolour paintings and designs have been immortalized as Greetings Cards and can be seen on carousels of greetings cards up and down the Coast.

Jane tries with difficulty to find painting-time in her busy schedule working as P.A. to Ole Sigurdsson. She has frequently drawn on the beauty of her surroundings at Miraflores for inspiration and as can be seen, one of her recent paintings of the picturesque well in Pueblo Miraflores is gracing the cover of this years' magazine.

www.costagalleries.com

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