Lindsey Whitelaw
Intro
Lindsey Whitelaw is a painter and landscape architect. She studied Fine Art at Exeter Art College in the 1970’s and landscape architecture at Manchester University. She set-up a successful Landscape Practice based in London and Leeds, with community outreach at the heart of the design ethos. Since retiring from Landscape practice in 2011 she has returned to painting, exploring her interest and concerns for the environment and overlooked, forgotten or threatened landscapes. The recent ‘Hive’ series raised awareness of the perilous effect of habitat loss on the bee population. She is currently working in collaboration with volunteers on a series of paintings to raise awareness of living with visual impairment. The exhibition will be launched at the Bloomsbury Festival October 2021. She splits her time between Cyprus and the UK.
“The process of painting can be a solitary and self-centred occupation; so I have welcomed this opportunity to work in collaboration with a group of people to help them express their view of the world with sight impairment. Creating these paintings with my 'team' for the Windows of the Soul exhibition has been a privilege and hugely enriching experience. I hope this exhibition will engage and enlighten others.”
Link to website: www.lindseywhitelaw.com
For this exhibition, Lindsey sent or showed pieces of her original artwork to other team members, who have a variety of conditions affecting their vision. The collaborators described what they saw when they looked at Lindsey’s artwork and she painted their responses, except in the case of Elizabeth Manuel who painted her own response.
Below is a list of Lindsey’s collaborators and their conditions:
Aleid Channing - Ocular Myasthenia Gravis
Anne Conduit - Optic Nerve Degeneration
Michael Boswell - Optic Neuropathy and Hypertensive Retinopathy
Robin Dunford - Chorioretinal Coloboma & Corneal Dysfunction
Pat Crawford - Retinitis Pigmentosa
Samantha Leftwich - Diabetic Retinopathy
Elizabeth Manuel - Subarachnoid brain haemorrhage
Lindsey’s originals
Collaborations with other artists
The images below show Lindsey’s original artwork on the left. Beside it are the responses based on the visual interpretation of her work by her collaborators. Lindsey painted all of the responses, except for Elizabeth’s, which she painted herself.