Wrexham burns survivor Catrin Pugh has shared her story on a BBC programme as an artist creates her portrait.
The BBC programme Extraordinary Portraits focuses on people with extraordinary stories, who see their experiences portrayed through a portrait by a distinctive and celebrated artist.
The programme is presented by musician and art collector Tinie and on Saturday (March 20), it focussed on the story of Catrin Pugh.
Catrin was left with burns on 96% of her body after she survived a crash near Alpe D'Huez in France back in 2013 at the age of 19.
She now works at the Katie Piper Foundation as a physiotherapist where she is able to help and support other burn survivors.
In the programme she spoke about very personal experiences, including the journey she faced to love the way she looks.
She talked about how she had skin donated from her brother and her mum from their thighs for her to have a skin graft, and spoke about how she now wears her scars “with pride”.
Read more: Wrexham burns survivor Catrin Pugh inspired Emmerdale actress through powerful storyline
She and artist, Kelvin Okafor came to North Wales where she showed him the place she feels most relaxed, near the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, which is where she went with her dad following the accident.
Kelvin, a hyperreal artist who specialises in pencil portraits, spent 650 hours on Catrin’s portrait, his longest ever, and completed it in black and white.
Did you catch me on Extraordinary Portraits last night? If not you can catch up on @BBCiPlayer and see the AMAZING portrait that @KOkaforart created! @tinie & the team were so great too - a dream to be a part of! #ExtraordinaryPortraits pic.twitter.com/zVTN4bGpsG
— Catrin Pugh (@CatrinPugh) March 21, 2022
The portrait moved Catrin to tears, who said on the programme: “There was a time that I didn’t like looking at photos of myself because I just never thought I would like what I looked at but you’ve done a perfect job of capturing it.
“You’ve made me want to look at myself properly and that is something I have learned to do with photographs and things, but I feel like this is something different.”
All four episodes of Extraordinary Portraits are on BBC iPlayer.
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