EIGHT years ago, just a few weeks after moving to Wrexham, artist Ana Ribeiro received the news that a fire had ravaged her home in Portugal had destroyed many years worth of her work.
It was a huge blow which came at the beginning of her career as a professional artist.
However, Ana did not let this setback deter her from her great passion.
She has worked hard to restore her portfolio and has now exhibited works at some of the region’s most popular galleries.
Ana, now 30, recalled hearing the devastating news: “When I was first here, it was just before Christmas. I had phoned my house to wish everybody a happy Christmas and my sister said to me that there had been a fire in our house.
“My first concern was my mother who had burns to her back and shoulder and had to go to hospital but thankfully she was ok.
“Then my sister told me that all my artwork, everything that I had done from 1998 when I was in college, and my paints and materials had been destroyed.
“All I had were some copies of some original graffiti work which I had given to my sister which I was able to use to reproduce the originals.”
“I was sad, but I knew I could do everything again and that it would give me more experience so I did and I am doing.”
Now a permanent resident in Wrexham, where she lives with her husband Mark Baines and their four-year-old son Andrew, Ana has bounced back from this huge setback and has been producing new works at her home studio and exhibiting at galleries around the country.
Ana works in a variety of media – from oil to watercolour to graffiti art.
She showed promise as an artist from a very young age.
“I started painting properly when I was studying in Portugal but I had always loved to draw,” she recalled. “From when I was very tiny I liked to draw and I actually won a prize for drawing from my town council when I was seven-years-old.
“I turned professional in August. I am also a full time mother so I paint whenever I can, like when my son is in school.”
However, although he is only four-years-old Andrew is already following in his mother’s footsteps.
“Andrew is painting already,” said Ana. “When I am painting I just set up his small easel and he stands next to me a paints.”
Since living in Wrexham, Ana has joined a group of artists called the Wrexham Stuckists.
Stuckism is a radical art movement which was founded in London in 1999.
The movement is for “contemporary figurative painting with ideas” and is against “the pretensions of conceptual art.”
There are now 170 Stuckist groups in 41 countries around the world.
Last month Ana joined other Stuckists in London for a demonstration against the annual Turner prize.
“I found the group on the internet and I thought that my ideas were very similar to theirs,” Ana explained.
“There are about 10 of us in Wrexham but the Stuckist movement is all over the world.
“We are more about the traditional values of art, landscapes and figurative art, nothing of abstract. I am against conceptual art.
"Turner was a painter so why do they have a prize in his name for conceptual art?”
For more information on Ana’s work visit www.anaribeiro.com