Date: Oct 2020 - May 2021

Group: NHS staff members of paediatrics allergies team

Description: In February 2020, a team of nurses based on paediatrics at Charing Cross Hospital lost a much loved colleague. They wanted to commemorate her with an artwork that could be displayed on their ward. 

I met with the group over zoom and we had a very moving and emotional discussion. They shared memories and stories about the time they had shared with their colleague, and I learned what a truly extraordinary person she was. Some strong visual themes which stood out to me where her love of butterflies, her Portuguese origins and that she was said to have emanated sunshine.

I began the art piece by looking at patterns found in traditional Portuguese tiles. I was told that she had some in her kitchen and they were intentionally mis-matching - she liked things this way. I looked also at the patterns in butterfly wings and found lots of parallels between these two sources. I began to experiment with stencils, taking shapes from these patterns and combining and overlapping them. I also looked into traditional Portuguese embroidery which had a soft and tactile quality. Her colleagues had mentioned that ‘she made things homely’, and hand stitching seemed to fit well with this.

I wanted to limit the pallet of colours to give space to the layers of pattern, so I used yellow to reflect her friendliness and warmth, and blue for her calm inner strength.

The finished artwork consists of 9 x 15cmx15cm paper ‘tiles’, decorated with gold leaf, gouache paint and yellow embroidery. The piece is currently being framed and will be on display at Charing Cross Hospital from August 2021.