Art

A black and white background image full of identical capsule pills, half black and white also sparkling..
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Proud Disabled Woman

'Proud Disabled Woman', is a digital self-portrait series, created in July for Disability Pride Month. Explore here. (July 2020)

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"It's all in your head"

These digital collages were made using personal images and public domain historical medical and advertising images to accompany an article for dubble. Explore here. (June 2020)

A background image full of identical capsule pills, half green and white.
A background image full of identical capsule pills, half blue and white.

Participation in Isolation - performances

My contribution to the open call put out by British Indian, multidisciplinary artist Rupi Dhillon. Asking artists in isolation due to the pandemic to create a performance a day during April. Creating a large participatory art piece together. Explore here. (April 2020)

A digital collage artwork: layered on top photograph of a glass high-rise building saturated with dark blue is the small figure of a white woman, face away from the camera curled up with pillows under her head and one in her abdomen. Pink pastel text cuts across the images reading: 'doctor knows best'.
A background image full of identical capsule pills. The entire image is a bright deep blue.

Be Patient collage series

'Be patient', is a collage series, reflecting on medical trauma. Whilst the portraits were taken by my partner artist Oscar Vinter. I have recontextualized them in digital collages as self- portraits, they affirm being visible as a sick person as a radical act; a resistance against being silenced. Explore here.

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A background image full of identical capsule pills all in a grey tone.
The image is a digital collage of 6 of the same black and white image of Oscar, a mixed race man in his twenties with short dyed blonde hair. He is wearing a dark turtle neck and squares of white paper over his eyes. The identical images overlap and are placed three alongside each other and three more in a row behind, the top row are cut off at the neck. The background is white.

Knowing Oscar, a photo story

This photo story explores the intimacy of photography and the relationship between the photographer and the subject. 

Explore the photo story here.

A background image full of identical capsule pills, half pink and white.

Undressing Trauma

This series explores... (Page is currently under-construction).

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Centre frame are three partially obscured reproductions of a snippet of the same photograph overlayed over the next. The upper face of a young white woman with dark eyes and brown hair and the bridge of her nose. The photo has a thick black border.
A black and white background image full of identical capsule pills, half dark grey and white.

Sheila Blood and Other Stories

‘Sheila Blood and Other Stories’ is a collaborative photo story created in 2018 by Oscar Vinter and  Charlie Fitz.  The photo story explores the absurdity of life and injustice at the intersections of race, gender and disability. Explore here.

Centre frame stands a young mixed race man, only his upper half from his waist is in frame. He wears a white t-shirt with a red and a grey stripe running across the front. He wears a child's' silver, grey and red space helmet and squints at the camera. A brick wall is behind him and a green plant.
A background image full of identical capsule pills. The entire image is a muted orange.

Being seen

‘Being Seen’ is a collaborative photo story created in 2018 by Oscar Vinter and  Charlie Fitz. It came about as a by-product of working through feelings of powerlessness in the face of ableism. The photo story explores the dynamics of invisible and visible disability in the private and public sphere. Explore here.

On the right of the image is a young mixed race man with bleached dyed blond hair wears a white jumper with a floral pattern on it, only his upper body in frame. His eyes are closed, he is lying down, seen from above and his head is surrounded by colourful flowers and paper decorations. A light leak runs vertically on the right side of the frame where there is also white text over-laying the image which reads: 'but you don't look sick' in a cursive font. To the left of the man is a partially transparent figure of a white woman wearing a black top, black anti-pollution face mask and white and green neck-brace.
A background image full of identical capsule pills. The entire image is a muted pink.

But you don't look sick

A multi-media series created in 2019 exploring sickness and body image, aiming to dismantle perceptions of what sickness should or does look like.Explore here.

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I do nothing

A multi-media series created by Charlie Fitz and Oscar Vinter in 2019. The pressure to perform a narrow  understanding of disability in public places to avoid confrontation. Explore here.

A red semi-abstract watercolour painting in red of the figure of a woman holding an IV pole. To the left of the red painting image are red paint marks signifying a hallway. The whole image has a pink hue.
A background image full of identical capsule pills. The entire image is a deep red.

Painting in pain

Painting as pain relief, painting as distraction, painting as compulsion, painting in and about pain. (Page is currently under-construction).

A background image full of identical capsule pills all white.
Grey clay hand carved sculpture of a torso without limbs or a head, with prominent, protruding ribs. The torso is hollowed out and there is an opening along one side which allows you to see that it is hollow. The image is taken from the front of the sculpture looking down from a slightly raised angle.

Bodies in parts

A series of sculptures from 2015 - 2019 exploring how illness can fragment identity and alienate the self from the body.  

 

Explore here.

I have always made art, written poetry, documented my experiences as a compulsion to help me understand and cope with the world, until recently I would destroy most of this work. Since I was child painting, sculpting and collage have been a neccesity to my mental wellbeing but I never saw the products as something to be treasured or shown. I was never fully comfortable with others seeing my work, as the process of creating was so intimate and personal the idea of letting others in terrified me. I also felt as though I did not deserve to make art, I was not worthy.

 

I now understand this is down to imposter syndrome, in which I never feel worthy of the platform. I always feel inadequate, this has come about by years of not being believed as a teenager who was a victim of sexual violence, not believed by instutions that were meant to protect me. And this silencing has continued as a young disabled woman with chronic illness. In which I have continually been silenced and not been believed as a credible witness to my own bodily experience, I, therefore, have not felt my own narratives were worthy of a platform. This imposter syndrome, driven by internalised sexism and ableism towards myself is something I have tried to tackle and fight against by creating online collections of the works that survived in spite of my impulse towards destruction and solo and collaborative works I have created, or projects I have been part of whilst addressing this impulse.

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I am currently working on a series called 'Undressing Trauma' in which I am exploring this cyclical silencing, my work aims to resist this feeling of being an 'imposter' for myself and other sick and/or disabled people as our lived experiences are vital to resisting and challenging the spaces and societies we inhabit. Our voices are valid.