PORTRAITS
I painted my friend Lisa a few years after her first cancer diagnosis and treatment and, unknown to us both at the time, finished it mere months before her second cancer diagnosis.
She had told me that after her mastectomy she felt that her sexuality and self-regard had been wholly depleted by the illness and treatment she had undergone. She asked me to paint her in an image which could call her equanimity back into being, believing that if a painting of herself as an alluring, defiant woman existed then she could reclaim it within.
For a short while she felt she achieved this and told me that posing for this picture gave her back some of the confidence she had thought lost. Painting this and spending so much time together in the making of it before her cancer returned and took her from us was a precious gift.
A brave and beautiful woman in every way. She will always be missed.
Lisa Brotherton 18.12.1960 - 03.03.2009