These pictures leave room for imagination. The figures of Michèle Lehmann inhabit a sort of landscape of the mind where they turn away from you. They point to something outside your range of vision or they hurry towards an unknown destination. They are attending an event whose purpose is unknown to you. There is something they are not telling you, and unavoidably you start to make up your own story. It is what is missing that is fascinating.

Michèle Lehmann, born in Switzerland, has lived and worked in Mijas for more than 30 years. She began with pencil drawings that evolved into great complexity, taking weeks to finish. She now produces oils carefully built in layers of glaze which have won prices over Spain and are shown in galleries in several countries. Michèle Lehmann is totally self-taught and credits Mijas itself and the many artists who live in and around the town with providing the stimulation and resources from which she learned. “The artists I know here have helped me to open my eyes,” she says. “From them I was able to get a very complete education, great stimulus and encouragement.”

When Michèle Lehmann arrived in Mijas, she opened a small shop in the square, which she then turned into an art gallery, as there were few outlets for local artists “I was always interested in culture in general, literature, music and the visual arts, but I then had no real idea of becoming an artist myself. I could say that boredom got me started. While I waited for people to come into my gallery, I began to draw. The more I drew these pencil drawings, the more I realized how much I loved doing it. There was an old woman in black who passed the gallery every day. She wore a black shawl, a black kerchief, a black blouse, a black skirt and black shoes, all different shades of black. I knew that I had to draw her, but she moved too fast to catch. So I drew her from behind.”

Mijas artist Don Clarke saw Lehmann’s drawing and immediately had it framed, over Lehmann’s objections. But she hung it in her gallery and it sold the next day. Six months later, noted artist Rowland Fade organized an exhibition for Lehmann in Almuñecar, which sold out. “I had begun to think that I should go to art school and get some formal training,” she said. But an art professor from Córdoba came to this show and told her that she was better off following her own path – and that is exactly what she has done.

David Searl