Real and imagined tales explored by Paula Rego and Mario Gonzales in Lotte Inch Gallery's summer show

Rego's work is accompanied by exhibits by British-based artists, each with international connections and influences: Mario Gonzalez, Celia Washington and Jean Duncan, alongside ceramics by Loretta Braganza.

"The exhibition, a unique visual offering designed to evoke a myriad of emotions, explores the hopes and dreams, the folklorish and fantastical influences, and the personal histories and horrors experienced by this group of accomplished artists with connections across the globe," says gallery curator Lotte Inch.

"Personal experiences of divergent cultures and traditions combine with nature, fiction, fantasy and folk law; with the familiar and the unfamiliar, in this exciting, multinational exhibition of prints and ceramics."

Paula Rego’s works are held in collections around the world. "Imbued with a feminist spirit, often depicting women in a state of fear and rage, Rego possesses a remarkable ability to communicate strong emotions in her work, whilst capturing the essence of a narrative," says Lotte.

"Drawing on literature, mythology, fairy tales, cartoons and religious texts, Rego’s works are at times surreal, mysterious and occasionally unnerving."

Rego’s passion for painting began as a child when she lived in Lisbon. Later, after moving to England, Rego studied at the Slade School of Art in London, reconnecting to her childhood memories of Lisbon and her Portuguese roots through her artwork.

She was an exhibiting member of the London Group, a circle of artists that included Frank Auerbach and David Hockney. In 1990 Rego was invited to become the first Associate Artist at the National Gallery and she is a Dame of the British Empire.

Mario Gonzalez's The Way Back, copyright The Artist

After a chance meeting with Mario Gonzalez, while in Havana, Cuba last July, and the subsequent news that Gonzalez would be coming to Britain later that year, Lotte decided that an exhibition of his charming, sometimes unsettling, but always exquisitely crafted prints, here in York, was a must.

"Unknown, as yet, within the art world in the UK, Gonzalez holds a greater and highly impressive reputation in his home country," says Lotte. "An established member of Havana’s thriving printmaking community, Gonzalez’s work has been exhibited at national and regional exhibitions in Cuba.

"Specialising in linocut and drypoint, his work is often inspired by the magic of nature and its relationship to us as human beings. It's also inevitably rooted in the culture of Post-Revolutionary Cuba; a culture that exudes a sense of defiance and vibrancy of spirit in all that it does, most notably through the art, music, dance and literary heritage of this most amazing of countries."

Now living in London, Gonzales is developing his creative practice and experimenting with other media to combine painting, drawing and photography in his prints.

Like Rego and Gonzales, the other artists in this summer's exhibition share a desire to travel and to experience cultures beyond their own. Each has travelled extensively, often having spent significant periods of time living abroad. They also all carry a preoccupation with nature and its potential to reveal hidden narratives, whether real or imagined.

Artist Celia Washington has lived and worked in Florence, Paris, Tokyo, Madrid, London and Kathmandu, but it was in London in the early 1990s that Lotte Inch, aged only five, first saw her work. "The picture that I then pointed at in approval still hangs on the walls of my house today," says Lotte.

Washington's paintings, prints, sculptures and films are inspired by the places where she has lived and travelled to in childhood and beyond. Her works possess a mystical quality and she acknowledges connections between her own visual language and that of Magic Realist writers. "Here, the ordinary becomes inextricably linked with the extraordinary, resulting in visual narratives that are simultaneously familiar and dreamlike," says Lotte.

Painter and printmaker Jean Duncan is a member of the Royal Ulster Academy, who lives and works in York after four years in France and earlier days of working and exhibiting in Japan and Portugal.

Jean Duncan's The Fly, copyright The Artist

Her work is inspired frequently by music, and her portfolio features many collaborative projects with composers and musicians. Literature and the surroundings in which she finds herself, whether this be the south of France or the coast of Northern Ireland, offer a rich resource for her mysterious, dreamlike and ambiguous works.

Like Jean Duncan, ceramicist Loretta Braganza lives and works in York, in her case having come to Britain as a young child from the vibrant Indian city of Mumbai. "Her pieces frequently explore the interactions between earth, air, fire and water and relates to a deeply felt sense of place," says Lotte. "They embody countless narratives, geographies and timeframes, all waiting to be discovered by the onlooker."

Braganza's lifelong passion for Indian dancing manifests itself in the choreography of the groups and related shapes that appear in her work. Her use of rhythmic surface patterning stems from a background in textile design, while her Fine Art training reveals itself in the painterly methods that she exploits. Both the Centre of Ceramic Art at York Art Gallery and the Duke of Devonshire's collection at Chatsworth house her sculpture.

Tales Of The Real And The Imagined runs at the Lotte Inch Gallery, Bootham, York, until August 20. Opening hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm; other times by appointment on 01904 848660.