Non-Binary Health Collection

Project doing portraits of people who have faced and dealt with or are dealing with mental health issues, with their stories in their own words

ID Non-binary person sat in wheelchair, they have a mohican hairstyle and they are flinging their arms out, black brolly in one hand, in an expression of joy. Behind them are trees and a leafy covered ground. And even further in the distance is iron railings

Title – Fee Henson 2024

Thank you very kindly to Fee Henson for this fabulous collaboration
Fee’s pronouns are they/their 
Here is Fee’s full story to go with their portrait –
“As anyone else with chronic illness will know, migraines are not uncommonly comorbid, but these ones were lasting months at a time, I was no sooner out of one GP than I was booking an answer trying to get some kind of treatment or answer. I’d turned up at A&E hoping for any kind of help whatever two nights in a row at one point. After this the GP had the nerve to ask me if I’d tried acupuncture for it. I left that appointment crying. The next GP appointment the GP said it’s probably nothing but let’s get an MRI done just in case. Little did she know that she might have just saved my life. The morning after the scan the doctor’s surgery called me back in urgently and said I needed to go to hospital where I had another CT scan. Thankfully I wasn’t having the aneurysm they thought I was having but instead I had a large brain tumour taking up residence inside my head. I had surgery to remove it in 2017 and radiotherapy on the negligible amount that remains to slow its regrowth. I also have a number of self-harm scars from my younger years as I live with bipolar, but I’ve been stable for many years now. I have regular MRIs to check it hasn’t started growing back yet though this kind of tumour is known to recur so that can make me quite anxious about the future sometimes. As headaches and migraines were my only symptom I can get quite anxious about friends with similar symptoms too. You can learn more about astrocytomas on the Brain Tumour Charity website: https://www.thebraintumourcharity.org/…/typ…/astrocytoma “
Materials – Watercolour (40.6 x 30.5 cm) Unframed
Price – £639 ($814) plus package and postage
Prints – £40 plus Package and postage
DM to purchase 
ID Non-Binary person looking very intense and speaking into microphone. They are wearing black eye liner which is streaked down their face they have a CND tattoo on one of their arms with rainbow colours running from it. They are wearing a pvc collar and a t-shirt which reads "Disabled and Proud" In the background are hippie floral hearts, flowers and music notes.

Title – Nicola Nugent (Nix) 2024

Thank you Nix for this fabulous collaboration. Here are 2 of Nix’s poems to go with their finished portrait

N NeurHidden Disability Poem

Humbling to all
Interesting to know
Disability can be
Deeply hidden
Enveloped in skin and brain
Neurological, cranial

Direct dirty looks
Internal turmoils
Sometimes I wish
A label was
Brazenly burned onto my body
In plain sight for all
Like a concentration camp stamp
Inmate
To help
You understand me

Wintertime

Parody from Porgee and Bess

Winter time

And the livin’ is shitty

Companies dumpin’

Hungry babies cry

0h the 1 % rich

Don’t worry about food for cookin’

Hush little baby don’t you cry

Hope a new day is dawnnin’

Open your eyes it’s just mingin’

We’ll stop standing these things

And we’ll march and we’ll strike

But til that forewarning

There’ w be T-V to calm you

With Netflix and Bezos standing

by

Wintertime

Covid’s makin’ me queasy

Gas & oil aint pumpin

Strugglin’ to get by

Disabled dead in a ditch

Stocks & Shares still procuring

Now hush little homeless

Get ready to die



Materials – Watercolour, (22.9 x 30.5 cm) unframed

Price £481 Plus P+P
Prints £30 Plus P+P

DM to purchase

ID portrait of non-binary person, they have long thick wavy dark hair and are wearing cats eye glasses. Their top is patterned with tigers and spots. They are supporting an ornately framed mirror with one hand and in the other holding a 2 headed doll. The dolls reflection can be seen in the mirror with the shirt making a densely patterned background. Behind them in the main portrait are loads of leaves of plants and a couple of dolls sat on shelves - It is a very dense painting with a lot going on
Title – Jet Moon 2025
 
Thank you to @xjetmoonx for this fabulous collaboration

Here is Jet’s story
Jet Moon (they/them)

When people talk about invisible disability I want to laugh, not because it’s funny but because ‘being invisible’ is a weird experience. When people don’t recognise that I face barriers, this makes it harder for me to advocate for my needs and limits. It’s a constant fight not to internalise the message to ‘just try a bit harder’. I’m invisible in the way where countless times my GP has said ‘Your test results are normal’ and casual acquaintances tell me ‘Hey! You’re looking well!’

I’ve had CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – also called M.E) for over 30 years, Fibromyalgia for around 15 years. I’ve had various mental health crises, battles with depression and addiction. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD, and this year I received an Autism diagnosis. At the age of 60 late diagnosis has helped my self-understanding, I can reflect on my life as a neurodivergent person with a new language to name my experiences.

Life has often felt like an exhilarating scary rollercoaster ride, a dramatic cycle of intense activity, with frequent crashes, flares of illness, and many periods of compulsory bed rest. Being an artist and activist has been crucial to my survival. It’s been a way to connect with community, to find meaning and sense of purpose. It’s true that my activist and creative goals have also had physical and mental costs, but that’s a fact of living with chronic illness, there is no magical place of balance.

The dolls in that appear in the picture are ‘Inner Demons’ that I made from papier mache. The one I’m holding is ‘Angela the Assessor’, I made her during a period of intense stress and illness caused by a PIP review. I hate that many of us are made more ill by that brutal process.

My most recent creative/activist project is ‘You Are Here – Survivor Writing’: a showcase of interviews and creative writing by trauma survivors from a wide range of experiences and backgrounds.
https://lnkd.in/d97YdURZ

Materials – watercolour, acrylic and pencil crayon (30.5 x 40.6)

Price £639 + P n P
Prints £40 + P n P

DM to purchase