Self-taught artist Salma Caller, who now lives in Oxford, was concerned when she first walked into The North Wall gallery and confronted all that white space.

Had she brought enough pictures? Would they fill the space?

She need not have worried. Her amazing works – all framed in superb black frames – contrast so superbly with the starkness of the gallery, that this space has never looked better. Besides, her pictures need space to breathe.

Salma paints in watercolours, which is not apparent to the spectator when first viewed. This is because she uses special Russian paints that have luminosity other paints don’t possess. They allow her to add layer after layer to the original work, until the embroidery threads, with their intricate and interconnected patterns, that she depicts in her first series, appear to be sewn on by hand. These pictures are stunning – the hours of patient work and the many brush strokes that have gone into producing them suggest a master at work.

Her Caught in the Woods (above), with its vivid colours of 12 golden-haired sisters huddled together waiting for their father to take them home after their night of jollity and dancing in the woods, is one of a series of large pictures displayed on the gallery’s far wall. For the women in the picture it is the end of enchantment, as they are forced to swap freedom for drudgery and arranged marriages. They are trapped, and know it.

Painted with the same care as the pictures of embroidery and fabric, this picture dominates the gallery. Like so many of her paintings the women are captured within their own tale.

Celestial Navigation is the moth which, on being attracted to the light, is trapped too.

Salma admits that encapsulating dark, disturbing tales taken from classics by the Grimm Brothers and similar writers of folk tales on to paper is what drives her on. Not only does she spend hours layering her paint , she spends hours researching the subject matter too.

This exhibition, entitled Intricate Tales, remains on show until Christmas.