‘Alf’ in Spain at Valencia Photo Fest …

… delighted to see one of my favourite works once again getting a showing across the other side of the planet … this time in Valencia Spain as part of the “Rostros – The Sea of Cultures” exhibition hosted by Valencia Photo Fest.

‘Alf’ is just one of the forty nine portraits by forty five artists from twenty six countries around the Globe that are now on the walls of two historic beautiful buildings in the centre of Spains third largest city. The exhibition was ‘inaugurated’ in front of large crowds at the two venues on Monday … the October Contemporary Culture Center and the Public Library of Valencia … both wonderful locations.

Very gratified to have my ‘Alf’ image “100 Years & 3 Weeks – Alf Neal OAM” amongst the 49 works chosen from last years massive 270 portraits shown at the Art-Icon “Faces” exhibition in Arles France.

Luckily I have a good photographer friend who moved home to Valencia from the United States fairly recently and he took time out to send me some images of my displayed portrait  … Thank You,  Michael Robinson Chavez !  ( … he’ll likely tell me orf for this ,,, but he’s won a Pulitzer … twice 😉 ). Curator at ValenciaPhoto, the lovely Vilma Dobilaitė, chipped in with a few images too … and was a pleasure to communicate with.

In case you can’t actually get to Valencia (I can’t 🙁 ) before the exhibition closes on the 1 st of September you can see the entire collection of the 49 portraits here …  https://valenciaphoto.es/rostros-el-mar-de-culturas/  (My “100 Years & 3 Weeks – Alf Neal OAM” sits at #8 on the list … and the page does have an English language option :- ) . )

Massive Thanks … Michael, Vilma … Danila and Slavica from Art-Icon … and, of course, the Neal family from Yarrabah Queensland.

Images © … Alf Image © Brian Cassey … Valencia images … ©Michael Robinson Chavez, ©Vilma Dobilaitė

Massive ‘Alf’ at Arles, France … Next … Valencia, Spain …

… fabulous to be part of a major portrait photography exhibition in Arles, France  … with my work “100 Years & 3 Weeks – Alf Neal OAM” exhibited over two and a half metres high overlooking the majestic Rhone River bank.

‘Alf’ wasn’t on his own … the river side walls were covered with scores of large images by the best portrait photographers from around the planet which made up the Art-Icon exhibit “Faces” (“Visages”) …. a major draw card in the just concluded 2025 Arles International Photo Festival (Rencontres d’Arles).

Sadly unable to travel to France for the show, It has been my real pleasure to vicariously enjoy it via the many photographers, both “Faces” participants and festival guests, who were lucky enough to ‘be there’ and nice enough to post images of the works very literally ‘on the walls’.

Good friends, Head On Photo Festival director Moshe Rosenzveig OAM and Pulitzer winner Michael Robinson Chávez, were attending the festival in Arles and took time out to make and send me pics of the exhibition and my ‘Alf’ work … whilst many of the “Faces” artists in attendance also splashed images around social media for those unable to get there ( See images below 🙂 ).

The good news continues … the fantastic exhibition  of photographic portraiture now moves on to the French town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue National Park later in August before travelling to Spain for the Valencia Photo Festival for September and October. 

‘Alf’ sure does get around … 

There is also a physical pictorial book of the “Faces” portrait exhibition in the works.

Once again I’d like to thank Danila Tkachenko and Slavica Veselinovic (@shavi_veselinovic) from Art-Icon for their tireless work creating this massive exhibition of poraiture and taking it to the World.

Images (from top) ©Brian Cassey, ©Michael Robinson Chávez, ©Moshe Rosenvzeig OAM (all featuring my ‘Alf’ image) … and ©Costa Corbas (the “Faces” exhibition on the banks of the Rhone River.) … Thanks Guys!