Artist gives away £84,000 of work to help hospice

Anita Nowinska is donating her paintings to a hospice charity

Artist Anita Nowinska is donating paintings worth £84,000 to a hospice to help comfort those who are ill.

Nowinska, 60, from Totnes, Devon, said she decided to donate her original paintings "to bring light into difficult places".

"Painting is what keeps me well, but the paintings were building up, and I wanted them to do more than sit in storage, to bring joy to others," she said.

Forty five paintings will be donated to St Peter's Hospice in Bristol and Nowinska has pledged to donate half of all her future work.

Nowinska's journey into painting came from personal crisis after a career in recruitment ended in the late 1990s.

She found herself with no home, no job, no partner and expecting a child so turned to art as a lifeline.

In the darkness of that moment, quite literally by candlelight after her electricity was cut off, she said she rediscovered a box of pastels.

That night, she created her first flower painting.

"While I was painting, the stress just melted away. I felt peace for the first time in ages," she said.

'Answering my prayer'

Nowinska said she received a call a few days later from a local gallery which, having seen a painting she had framed as a gift for her mother, asked if she had more work to exhibit.

"It felt like the universe was answering my prayer," she said.

She said she had embraced her art fully, raising her son in Devon, where nature and creativity became "central to her life and healing".

"Even a dandelion growing through pavement cracks has beauty, that's what I try to capture," she said.

Her work has been exhibited across the UK, but 2024 brought new challenges for her with the market for her work tightening, leading to a decision to donate 50% of her work.

"If one painting can bring a moment of relief or joy to someone in pain, then it's worth everything," she said.

"Art is meant to be shared. If it can bring comfort, then it's doing its job."

She asked for any hospices, hospitals and care homes interested in taking her work in the future to get in touch via her website.