Oil painter, Dawn Blatherwick, began painting again in 2017 after a break of 26 years. ‘When I returned to painting, I chose to work with oil paints. It has been a steep learning curve, but the most enjoyable thing I’ve done. Before this I managed a small graphics team for 16 years, but decided to make art my fulltime job in 2022.
‘In 2018 I appeared as a wild card on Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year and in 2021, I made my way to a pod, where I was down to the last three in my heat. My biggest achievement I think so far was painting a portrait for NHS heroes for a paramedic who lost his life to Covid. I was shortlisted for the Holly Bush Emerging Woman Painter Prize in 2022.