about Jacha

Born in South Africa in 1963, he married a Welsh girl, Gwen, in 1992 and settled in North Wales. He has a John Moores BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art which he completed at Wirral Metropolitan College in 2001 and a Nature Conservation Diploma, Cape Town circa 1986.

He works from life and from his imagination, producing paintings, prints and 3D work. His work is in private collections in Australia, America, Turkey, France, Bermuda, Germany, Belgium, South Africa, Greece, Canada, Portugal, Norway, Northern and Southern Ireland, London and Wales.

Jacha works full time on his art and has a large body of original prints and paintings available for exhibition.

He has his own gallery space in the Alpine Coffee Shop and Gallery, Betws-y-Coed, North Wales, where his work can be viewed and purchased (see his website: www.alpinecoffeeshop.net).

Jacha in the studio

how he works

Jacha's work is often much larger than life and features images of people looking directly back at the viewer, turning the tables on the idea of viewing art as you get a sense of the art viewing you.

Jacha's earlier conservation studies and his love of animals has always influenced his work. A trip to the orangutang foundation in Borneo in October 2008 provided the subject matter in this Gallery.

Jacha's subconsious provides much of his subject matter, images are created spontaneously, without conscious thought. Evidence of his early religious upbringing, his love of animals, his relationship with the world and the people in it merge together to produce a variety of images, some political, some making social comment, some disturbing, some entertaining.

Read about Jacha's paintings on the Orangutan Foundation website >

Read about Jacha's paintings on the BBC News website >

Jacha in Borneo

passion

My passions are Conservation and being creative and this combination gives me the ideal opportunity to raise people's awareness of environmental issues. My wife and I have a coffee shop (www.alpinecoffeeshop.net). We use the coffee shop and my work to raise money for apes and other conservation issues. Currently, we support the Orangutan Foundation (www.orangutan.org.uk) and Ape Action Africa (www.apeactionafrica.org). Palm oil and bush meat and rainforest destruction are only some of the very big issues for me and I hope to be able to make a significant contribution.

I have been to Borneo and Cameroon to see and work with both of these organisations, to get information to make paintings and to take photographs which we now sell to raise money to help the apes. Sizes of paintings range from 60cm x 80cm to 1m x 1.5m whilst photos are 30cm x 45cm (unframed) or 80cm x 75cm (framed). We also have a painting of a caracal for sale (see "new paintings") the proceeds of which will go to South African SPCA.

I also paint a wide range of other subjects, some of which are created from my own imagination rather than from life. Additionally, there is a wide range of prints, created using various techniques.

There is always something new to see. Prices range from £30 to £80 for a print whilst paintings range from £200 to £2,000. Anyone interested in purchasing can contact me via "contact" on the website. We can ship worldwide. Anyone interested in finding out more about the issues mentioned is very welcome to contact me.

Thank you for reading this and may you have a palm-oil free life.

Alpine Coffee Shop (Studio), Station Approach, Betws-y-Coed, Conwy, LL24 0AE
Phone: 01690 710238 / 07714 300744 Email: jacha@jacha.co.uk