Gibraltar awards recognise the talent of Spanish artists

The 52nd International Art Exhibition of Gibraltar has awarded its top prizes to two talented artists from Spain's Cadiz province. José Luis Mancilla from Ubrique claimed the prestigious first prize, while Juan Anelo from San Fernando won the award for best work featuring Gibraltar as its theme.

Organised by Gibraltar's Cultural Services, this year's exhibition attracted 97 works from local and international artists. The competition awards first, second, and third prizes honoring Gustavo Bacarisas, Jacobo Azagury and Leni Mifsud respectively, along with special categories for best work with a Gibraltar theme and best young artist.

The exhibition is open to the public at the Gustavo Bacarisas Gallery until Saturday, with free admission from 10.30am to 1.30pm.

José Luis Mancilla, 68, from Ubrique, won the coveted Gustavo Bacarisas first prize, valued at £5,000, for his oil painting "Don Quixote and Sancho Panza". A History graduate from the University of Seville, Mancilla taught History and Art History at a local high school for 33 years.

"I've been painting all my life, since I was small," Mancilla explained. "Painting is an authentic passion for me." His artistic training began in Ubrique following the Pedro de Matheu School tradition, starting with teacher Francisco Peña Corrales before continuing as a self-taught artist.

His winning work depicts a Seville rooftop at sunset. "Like my other works, it represents a lived landscape," he said. "I fell in love with the evening light." The painting's title came from a family member who noticed two elements in the foreground. Though Don Quixote never ventured beyond Sierra Morena in Cervantes' novel, Seville does appear in the famous work, with the knight declaring it "a place so suitable for finding adventure that more adventures present themselves on each corner than anywhere else."

"Painting is that each work we embark on is an adventure," Mancilla noted. The piece took approximately six weeks to complete, though he cautioned that "time in painting is relative; each painting is its own world."

This was Mancilla's third time entering the Gibraltar competition. "Winning the first prize, which pays tribute to the great Gibraltar painter Gustavo Bacarisas, and attending the awards ceremony and exhibition opening has been an enormous source of pride," he said. "I began participating in this competition because I'm in love with Bacarisas' work, which I know well from the collection at Seville's Museum of Fine Arts."

Mancilla's work has received recognition at other national and international competitions, including recently winning the acquisition prize for the third time at the XXIV Cultural Competition Virgen de las Viñas in Tomelloso, and an award at the Autumn Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Santa Isabel de Hungría in Seville.

Juan Anelo, born in Cadiz in 1973 but raised in San Fernando, won the Rudesindo Mannia Award for best work with a Gibraltar theme, valued at £1,000. A Physical Education graduate who has worked as a fitness trainer and sports facility manager, Anelo relocated to San Roque in 2001 to work as Spa director at Hotel NH Almenara (now SO Sotogrande).

Art has always run parallel to his professional career. "I've painted since I was small; I was always good at the arts in general and sports," he explained. "Although I chose the latter as my occupation, I was clear that I would continue painting as an amateur."

Art is a family tradition for Anelo. His father, Antonio Anelo, was a renowned painter, sculptor and carver from San Fernando. "All the siblings received basic artistic training from him from a young age," he said. His older sister Inmaculada studied Fine Arts in Seville and works professionally as an artist, while his older brother Antonio, though a military professional, is also an excellent oil portrait painter.

The 2020 Covid lockdown proved pivotal for Anelo's artistic development. With newfound free time, he focused seriously on watercolours and learning. This led to Rincones de Luz y Color, his first series exhibited at the ERA Art Gallery in San Fernando and later at Gibraltar's John Mackintosh Hall, where it received critical acclaim.

His winning watercolour, The Quiet Ascent In Gavino's, is based on a black-and-white photograph by Gibraltar photographer Mabelle Imosi. The work is part of his second series, tentatively titled Otros Tiempos, featuring scenes from bygone eras.

"This image had everything I was looking for," Anelo explained. "It has a beautiful contrast of tones and balance of lines and forms, and it tells a story. In my interpretation, the elderly man laboriously climbing the stairs is an allegory of the passage toward death – an effortful ascent toward the light, but in a calm and serene manner."

Anelo has close ties to Gibraltar; his wife of 16 years is Gibraltarian. This was his first competition entry, encouraged by those who viewed his initial exhibitions.

"Recognition is always welcome, though I don't think it should be a painter's objective," he reflected. "I paint according to how I feel and what I can make others feel. If the work is liked and recognised afterwards, that's great. I usually say that receiving awards is good, but needing them is very bad."