Art as therapy

I have been doing a bit of sorting out as I need to make space for Alan to move in after we get married… I came across some of my artwork that I did at A’Level. I remember so well how therapeutic I found art. I took it as a fourth A’Level because I loved it so much. This one epitomised how lost and confused I could feel:


This one was a response to meeting and spending time with those who were on the fringes of society. In particular, I was shocked by meeting a group of prostitutes who were heroin addicts. Actually I suppose they were addicts who were funding their habit with prostitution. I was a broad-minded and worldly teenager but until then I had no inkling of the depths of ugliness, humiliation and despair that human beings could sink to. The thing I couldn’t get my head around was the difference between the way they looked when they were ‘working’ and when they weren’t. It wasn’t just sex that was being sold – it was a lie.



This is my most personal piece. There was a tremendous agony behind it that was released when I painted it. I had been out with an older man who worked on the funfair and he had tried to force himself on me. Then later he publicly dumped me in humiliating fashion. The girl represents me and the baby was the imaginary product of our short and painful relationship. Again, the painting shows I feel lost and alone in a sinister world. Looking at the painting now I think the baby represents my own inner child who I wanted to protect but didn’t know how.


I’ve recently taken up painting and drawing again, thanks to encouragement from The Pluralist. I’ve enjoyed painting and drawing my blogging friends (not sure they feel the same way). I have also painted characters from the past.

What has struck me is it is the wrinkles, the lines, the bags under our eyes, the moles that make us distinctive and give our faces character. Everyone has darkened skin under their eyes and laugh lines. Why on earth do we care? Everyone is beautiful. It is so intimate paining peoples faces – I am struck by their beauty and how their dads and mums must know and love their features so well.

I would love to do a larger project – like these pictures from A’Level. I didn’t intend to give up art forever when I left school, but somehow I have never found the time to commit to it ever since. I’ll have to see if I can find some time in the next phase of life.