Gabriëlle Westra  (1990) lives and works in Heerenveen. She studied the Art of Painting at the Classical Academy in Groningen. Her teachers were Henk Helmantel, Sam Drukker and Chris Herenius among others. In addition to these 5 years of training, she also studied at the Academy of Art in Florence. In June 2015 she got her Masterdegree allowing her to call herself Master of Painting. Since 2014 she is a guest lecturer at the Classical Academy in Groningen.

At the Classical Academy Gabriëlle focused on the technical aspects of painting by  model-, portrait- and still life studies. She now focuses on the light, plasticity and perspective.
In her own work Gabriëlle unites the ornamented / flat elements with the naturalistic / plasticity.

Gabriëlle is fascinated by the differences between the flat surface and the suggestion of space one can create. She’s passionate about painting people in a classical technical way. She combines these subjects with ornamental elements. This creates a tension between foreground and background and between the 2D- and 3–dimensional aspects of the painting.

Her love for ornaments is also recognizable in her small realistic still lives. These still lives consist of highly ornamented objects. The beauty of the objects is more important than their function. That is why they deserve to be painted. She unites those objects with her own ornaments to a unique artistic combination.