The title Quizás fuera un hada (Maybe It Was a Fairy) could be saying that what is hidden from the spectator, deep in a leafy wood behind a branch, may well be a fairy. The woods, so important in the childhood of this artist, who lived between Madrid and San Rafael (Segovia), left a profound and indelible mark on her soul and on her work.

Ouka Leele conceives photography as a way of capturing the present. And although through it she strives to express the sublime nature of the everyday, the influence of painting takes her a step further. She paints over her black and white photos with watercolours to instil them with a more personal and theatrical look and to give them a more elaborate and emotional creative process. The colouring is achieved by using primary colours which, for the artist, convey a total expressiveness, much superior to what a photograph can attain.

In this work the artist demonstrates her use of unusual framing and perspectives. Light is a key element, partly created through a meticulous use of the greenish watercolour in which the silhouettes are enveloped and that generates a mythical and bright space.

In the early 1980s Ouka Leele was one of the leading names in the Madrid-based cultural movement known as the Movida, which in her case pushed her to explore her creativity and expand her artistic conceptions. She acknowledges a number of different influences, ranging from nature itself to Velázquez (1599-1660), William Blake (1757-1827) or Man Ray (1890-1976), among others. Those influences lend her works a classical and at once mysterious meaning that is, at the same time, extroverted and colourful.