Hello, and welcome to my website.

My given name is Alex Dampney, but in 2015 I started to use the name Jwala, which means "fire".
Fire is my inspiration and my energy.
Jwala is my creative spirit.

I was born and brought up on a farm in the south of England (near Bournemouth for the more curious), went to Edinburgh to study and then worked in London. In 1992 I came to Brussels on a 3 year secondment...and I'm still here.

The closest I came to art for many years after leaving school was outlining meringue dressed princesses for my children. Then, when they were old enough to be left on their own with their Danish grandparents, I needed to find something to do to fill the week. In Denmark there is a wonderful system of adult education called 'Højskole' where you can study and practice all manner of things for a week, a few months or a year - so, anxious about having a week immersed in danish, I signed up for a water colour course because the teacher was English. And I was hooked, not on water colour, but on creating pictures. Oil quickly became my favourite medium by far.

What you see here is the result of that serendipitous event - and a few years of practice and experience. Energy, the energy of all things natural is what inspires me most, particularly the energies of fire and waves.

It's never too late to discover what you love.