Yahoo News St Oswald's Hospice launches 'emotional' portraits exhibition highlighting end-of-life care
An emotional new exhibition has opened highlighting "the bond that doesn't die" when a loved one dies and promoting the care offered by St Oswald's Hospice.
Entitled Portraits with Purpose: Continuing Bonds, and created by Fenham artist Leanne Pearce, the exhibition features twelve portraits of people who have received or are receiving palliative and end-of-life care at St Oswald's. Leanne has created the artwork working closely with the families - who have experienced care and support from the charity at the most difficult of times.
Those featured include Craig Puranen-Wilson and little Aarvi Goyal. Both their families were happy to work with Leanne on the powerful exhibition - which will run at Newcastle Civic Centre from May 10 to May 17.
Craig died at 56 in 2018 after living with cancer, while Aarvi died before her second birthday - she had been born with the genetic condition Edward's Syndrome. Craig's wife Krista now works at St Oswald's, inspired by the care he received, and she was moved by taking part in the portrait project.
She said: "My late husband Craig who is included in this wonderful exhibition sadly passed away in our hospice. I was with him for that five days and I had this amazing care that St Oswald's gave us which really impressed me at a very difficult time of my life."
She added that artist Leanne had been wonderful, saying: "When I first saw it I was blown away. It was so life-like. It was just incredible, I didn't expect it to feel like that - it was like I had a brand new picture of him I had never seen before."
Krista said that it had been poignant to be involved, and that it was a timely reminder, six years on from his death, of the central role Craig had in her life, and in the Tyneside cultural scene. She added: "The way this exhibition has been put together - I feel these people are altogether now too. It's very intimate and with these people together there's a kind of warmth and happiness here."
Aarvi's parents Ankur and Neha told ChronicleLive how emotional it had been to see the portrait of their daughter. Both parents, 38, said St Oswald's had been vital support at a time where they would otherwise have felt isolated away from close family.
Ankur said: "St Oswald's Hospice is very close to us. We were offered services when Aarvi was still here but we didn't really use it until it was close to the end. What we realised was that the things they do are amazing, and when they asked about this project, we wanted to support anything that helped them."
He added: "When were shown the portrait it was very moving. Hopefully if our story can inspire or help anyone else that will be great. People look at hospices - as I did - as something not-so-comfortable, somewhere you go to die. But that's not always the case."
Neha added: "When we started this process we were not sure what the end point would be. But when we came up and saw the final portrait, we were full of emotion. It's like-life - she looks as she was in life.
Artist Leanne also told ChronicleLive how emotional the process had been - she sad she had been moved to tears frequently when working with bereaved and pre-bereaved families.
She said: "I try to make meaningful work, rather than just interior design based art and I contacted St Oswald's because I know what beautiful work they do and how highly-regarded they are in the North East. "I think it's important for people to take inspiration and see how you can continue tthe bonds we have after someone's life."
The exhibition launches at the end of Dying Matters Week - designed to promote conversations about death and grief - and St Oswald's chief executive Steph Edusei said this was vital. Speaking about the project she said: "It all started when Leanne approached us with this idea of working with families who have had contact with the hospice to create portraits of them or their loved ones and t's been a real labour of love.
"Portraits with Purpose is really here to help promote conversations about death and dying and grief and loss, but for the individuals involved it's about continuing bonds."
Steph said that recognising the enduring connections we have, even long after someone's death, is essential. She added: "We all know if you have lost somebody that bond with them doesn't die when that person dies, it continues beyond that. For the individual it's about helping to continue that link and that love - but more broadly - death is going to happen to all of us unfortunately and it's somehting we need to talk more about."
To visit Portraits with Purpose, head to Newcastle Civic Centre between 9.30am and 4.30pm on weekdays and 10am to 3pm Saturday. The exhibition runs until May 17.
