Peter Wray has found the perfect opportunity to market his work. While the Adze Gallery management team of Dave Durham and Dee Bray-Calvert are away on holiday, he is not only running their Goodramgate art space in York but also filling the walls with 48 of his own works.

"I know Dave through the local art scene and I'd noted that after many years, a gallery had opened in York to specialise in fine art," says Peter, of Ogleforth, York. "Dave and Dee knew my past work, and putting on an exhibition here seemed a good idea - especially doing it this way, with me in the gallery during the exhibition, which gives me the opportunity to meet people as they view the work.

"Normally when I exhibit, in London galleries or wherever, you don't get that chance, with the exception of preview nights."

Peter is exhibiting his latest paintings, prints, digital images and Raku panels at Adze Gallery until January 27. "It's the first time I've exhibited here, and Dave and Dee haven't seen any of these pieces... but they trust me!" says the 50-year-old North Eastern fine-art painter, printmaker and college lecturer, whose work is for sale at £55 to £480.

The exhibition is entitled Sifting Through the Ashes. "Across a period of anyone's life certain things are lost or destroyed, and the notion of sifting through the ashes is that what remains is indestructible: that's the thrust of this show," says Peter.

"A lot has happened in the last two years, and the work on the walls has to do with me going into and coming out of that period. So, certain things are very personal, others are less coded, and every piece has a meaning to me, but that dialogue is between me and the piece."

Not that Peter is possessive. "I have a philosophy that images, paintings, objects, artefacts, are the flotsam and jetsam of a learning process; it's the learning that's important and the objects are the by-product of that process," he says. "I don't view them as my 'children' but as things that have happened and have had a role, so when they are sold it's the end of one journey and the beginning of another.

"Viewers have their own baggage to bring to a painting and that completes the work. Whether they interpret what they see in the manner that I put it down is not of consequence, as long as it enriches it in some way.

"Every piece has a history and it's nice to see that history on a wall: any working artist has work resting against a wall or under a bed or in a chest, so to see your work on a wall is invigorating."

For Peter, the opening of Adze Gallery has been similarly invigorating. "I feel there are far too few outlets and venues for artists in York, so a new contemporary gallery like this is a godsend," he says.

With that in mind, he is looking to set up a centre for experimental print-making in York, and come the end of this month, he will have more time to focus his thoughts on that goal - and not because his brief time at Adze Gallery will be up.

Peter, who was born in Sedgefield, County Durham, and brought up in a small coal-mining village near Bishop Auckland, has long been involved in teaching art. However, "owing to the economic constraints being imposed on higher education," he has been obliged to take voluntary severance from his post of head of print-making at the College of Ripon and York St John, where he has taught since 1987.

Rather than feeling bitter, he prefers to look to the future. "I'm interested in exploring the gaps between painting, photography, digital media and installations - the work in this show reflects that - and so that's why I want to hear from artists interested in establishing a print-making centre. We would need a gallery space and a workshop in or around York, where we'd incorporate facilities for digital imaging and web design," says Peter, who can be contacted on 07740 409072.

Peter Wray has another challenge ahead too: between now and September he will be creating a whole new body of work for his next exhibition in York, at the Pyramid Gallery in Stonegate.