Disability Arts Cymru put out a commission in late 2024 asking for eight artists to create work, in any art form, that shares their lived experience through creativity.
What’s it like to be you? What is your lived experience? What unique perspectives do you have as a disabled person? We want you to show us by producing outstanding art, in any art form
As an artist I think I’m pretty lucky, I can see things – work – creations – in my minds eye, sometimes instantly. It’s rare I suffer from an ‘creative block‘. I even DREAM about paintings and drawings.
This particular commission asked for a connection to nature and I thought about a young lady I know who is disabled, and how we over time, have talked about a lot of things. I love history, folklore and myth and have passed some of these stories on to her.
She is profoundly disabled, so instead of reading aloud I kind of … voice act stories for her, which she has a good chortle over.
Critics everywhere!
There are many subliminal and overt messages in my commission piece, and I hope anyone who sees it will make up their own minds and perhaps look a little closer at it as there is a LOT on it to gain an insight to its themes.
Based in Part on Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delight‘ it tells a story of two halves, of her heaven and my hell, and a story of two women, myself and this young lady.
I am in a HELL – because I live on disabled benefits, and as I write this post in May 2025, our Labour government have decided to cut disability benefits, particularly PIP for all adults in the UK, to ‘encourage’ them to get a job, in other words, get a job you lazy fake-disabled bastards, and unfortunately for us, the press are doubling down on this.
It’s estimated around 750,000 people will lose their personal Independance Payment (or PIP). If it goes ahead, this number will be more than a million people forced into even more poverty as the vast majority of PIP claimants do not meet the 4 points necessary in the daily living section to get this benefit.
I know this, and I am scared. I know what disabled peoples’ future may hold and its terrifying.
The young lady sitting next to me in this portrait is severely disabled, she has a learning disability, is non-verbal, blind and needs 24/7 care, yet she is one of the happiest people I know, and although there’s no doubt she will continue to get her disability benefits, she is completely unaware of the horror that awaits so many of us.
She is in heaven – and welcomes each day with such joy, and rightfully so, her disability is such that, she does not understand.
I knew I wanted to include a nod to The Garden of Earthly Delights (Who else but Heironimus Bosch could paint heaven and hell so beautifully?) But I needed to include my own personal hell too, and continuing with a mythical theme I included a seven headed Hydra. Each head is an Ex-Tory minister, and each hydra has a QR code leading to a video of past speeches they had made available on you tube explaining why disabled benefits should be cut or eradicated.
If I had begun the piece a little later, I would have included 3 more heads, from the labour party (Rachel Reeves, Keir Starmer and Liz Kendall). The hydra’s heads are Jeremy Hunt, Norman Tebbit, Mel Stride (who wanted to stop all disabled benefits and replace them with a single, one-off payment for ‘equipment‘), Iain Duncan Smith, Jacob Rees Mogg, Therese Coffey and my most reviled MP of all Liverpudlian horror queen Esther McVey.
These millionaire inhuman wastes of skin sit on top of a skull which is tottering on a sea of despair. The sea is a collage, made up from the abhorrent speeches made by these ministers.
Of course the painting isn’t just about MY personal hell… it’s also about heaven, or what one may perceive to be heaven.
As a convent educated, lapsed Catholic I have a purely biblical ideal of what heaven is, no war, no famine, no illness, warmth, love, and weird fountains and huge fish -Kinda like Bosch’s ideal. as directed by David Lynch and sang about by Kate Bush.
In truth I have no idea, but did feel swayed to include (unconciously) a heavenly Yellow Brick road to Paradise.
One of the young lady’s favourite stories is the tale of Blodeuwedd, and to me she is such a bright, happy person I think of her, like Blod, as made of flowers. Despite being in a wheelchair (as am I) I’ve depicted her as a modern, disabled Blodeuwedd, with an owl perched upon her shoulder. Her side of the painting is a kind of idealised Bosch heaven, filled with abundance, calm in its peace, no worries, no benefits to beg for.
I was really lucky to be picked for this commission and had wonderful support and encouragement from DAC officer Rachel Stelmach.
Rachel has worked for DAC for several years in various capacities, her job now includes helping disabled artists with Disability benefits, which in truth, she shouldn’t have to do, but it shows what a need there is for someone to help when you are refused and then have to go to court.
This is part of Rachel’s job – Not art, but survival.
Thank you, Rachel, for the amazing job you do.
Rachel was also a great inspiration for me on this project when she asked if I’d thought of including QR codes in the piece that would lead the viewer to videos on your tube.
The painting is now filled with them, and all lead to a relevant interaction to the painting and its message/meaning (though that ultimately is up to you to decide!).
I did begin with a song – and I wanted to use something joyful and uplifting for the heaven side (and something not so happy for the Hell side). I decided to use ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing‘ By the new seekers, and soon had to abandon that idea as I was concerned about copyright. Which gave me another idea……
That idea was….. writing my own song as part of the whole experience, and it was a way to illustrate through sound, what the painting depicts.
It would take pages to explain how this happened, so let me make it short! I am lucky enough to have a son who is a musician, and a best friend who is a whizz on Adobe creative cloud, so with their help we made
‘The Seven Heads of the Hydra’
Here are the lyrics:
Seven Heads of the Hydra
by TanOren
Another letter in the mail today
Another form to fill, another price to pay
They say they need more proof
Like years of pain aren’t enough,
And my hands shake as I write
‘Cause I know what’s coming next
They cut me down, they build their walls
I’m crawling back up every time I fall.
And every time I prove my case….
They find new ways to make me wait
There’s no yellow brick road to paradise
Just seven heads of the hydra telling lies
(Just telling lies, telling lies)
Cut one down, watch six more rise
There’s no yellow brick road to paradise
(No road to paradise)
Can’t keep my heating on no more
It’s getting colder on this kitchen floor
My bones ache deep inside
But they say I look just fine
And every month’s a fight to breathe
While they say I’m make-believe
They cut me down, they build their walls
I’m crawling back up every time I fall
And every time I prove my case
They find new ways to make me wait
There’s no yellow brick road to paradise
Just seven heads of the hydra telling lies
(Just telling lies, just telling lies)
Cut one down, watch six more rise
There’s no yellow brick road to paradise
(No road, no road to paradise)
They say prove it, prove it, prove it again
They say show us,
Show us all your pain
There’s no yellow brick road to paradise
Just seven heads of the hydra telling lies
(Just telling lies, just telling lies)
Cut one down, watch six more rise
There’s no yellow brick road to paradise
(No road, no road to paradise)
Here is the QR code (please try it!) which is part of the collage in the hair of Blodeuwedd at the bottom right of the painting.
To say this commission was a learning curve for me is an understatement!
I researched, drew, then collaged and painted the biggest piece I’ve ever created 23×24 inches – which probably doesn’t seem that big, but when you haven’t got a studio, work in a bedroom and have to balance bigger pieces on your knees…. I learnt how to make a basic video using Adobe CC Premiere Pro and also sang (a terrible thought! my voice was altered with AI thank goodness!) and created a song to illustrate the painting.
I do think this song tells my story, OUR disabled story of a life trapped in disbelief, one of struggle, one of pain and illness and being thought of by most people and nearly all the all the media as .. idle dole scum. It was a painful yet ultimately satisfying experience.
I really feel like I have accomplished something -probably for myself as I doubt many people will ever get to see this painting!
The young lady in the painting, the person who inspired it. will never see it. and perhaps that’s the whole point – this painting allowed me to think outside the box in reaching people who can’t SEE art, but can still experience it through sound, or touch.
Huge thanks to DAC for giving me the chance to complete this commission! Hard work but worth it.