Burns survivor Catrin Pugh who featured in a BBC series where she sat for a portrait, will see the artwork being put on display in Margate.
Catrin, from Wrexham, 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 and featured in the acclaimed BBC series Extraordinary Portraits.
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The series sees musician and passionate collector of art Tinie (formerly known as Tinie Tempah) match members of the public with extraordinary stories to a selection of distinctive and celebrated portrait artists.
The artists are then challenged to turn these personal and powerful experiences into compelling portraits- celebrating modern Britain in all its glory.
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Kevlin Okafor, a hyperreal artist who specialises in pencil portraits, spent 650 hours on Catrin’s portrait which will now be displayed in an exhibition at one of the UK’s leading art galleries, The Turner Contemporary Margate.
Other sitters include a bisexual footballer encapsulated in a multi-media artwork, a Shetland Island cancer survivor captured on canvas, and an autistic surf champion, being photographed as a sea nymph.
Nav Raman, Executive producer for Chatterbox and Chatterbox co-founder said: “The Turner Contemporary celebrates Margate’s connection with J.M.W.Turner, who used to visit the area to capture the incredible sunsets you can see from the gallery. He, like us, believed that art could be an agent of change.”
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He added: “We are proud of the portraits that were produced for this series. They aren’t just technically brilliant, but also powerful”, adds Chatterbox co-founder Ali Quirk, “This series has quickly developed a dedicated following, and active fan-base. We can’t wait for them to be able to see the pictures up close.”
All 12 artists that featured on the first two seasons of the show will have their work on display, including paintings, large-scale street-art, underwater-photography, and hyper-realistic smaller works.
They are:
- Roxanna Halls
- Christie Lee Rogers
- Dale Grimshaw
- Kelvin Okafor
- Thomas Croft
- Caroline Pool
- Stuart Pearson-Wright
- Bella Kotak
- Lo Lo No
- Amar Stewart
- Ross Muir
- Laura Quinn Harris
The exhibition will be free and open to the public from Wednesday, September 7 - until Sunday, October 23.
Both series are still available on BBC iPlayer.
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