23. June 2026

Tired but Determined!

Posted 30th September 2017

I spent all day yesterday taking down my first major exhibition of portraits entitled “Paint me this way!”, which was on for three months this summer at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, thanks to funding from the Arts Council England.  This exhibition was a showcase for all the portraits that feature in my book, Portrait Therapy, that will be published in 2018 by Jessica Kingsley.  

Sophie Cummings, the gallery curator said “We have never had such an amazing response to an exhibition!  It has been described as 'moving, beautiful, and inspirational'.  

As I look through the Comments Book I am struck by something a lady called Dawn wrote, she said ... “You see the beauty in people, and then translate that into the portraits, so that we can see it too!”   And thinking about it, this short sentence describes Portrait Therapy in a nutshell.  

Through adding ‘aesthetic resonance’ to the portraits, patients too are able to see themselves as I see them … beautiful, complex and unique … and I have the privilege of telling their extraordinary stories of self-identity.As I carefully wrap the portraits for storage, I see the faces of the patients I have worked with shining back at me, and it fills me with a new sense of determination and focus, to apply for a new application to the Arts Council England, this time for a touring exhibition of the portraits.  So that these portraits can be unwrapped again and seen by more people … 

As Pinkola Estes (1992) once said: “Art is not just for oneself, not just a marker of one’s own understanding.  It is also a map for those who follow after us”.