Cheryl Roach: Health battle inspired model's art show

Cheryl Roach says her debut solo exhibition will feature oil paintings she has compiled over several years

A model who nearly died when she suffered a brain aneurysm is staging her first solo art exhibition.

Cheryl Roach, 46, of Hopton, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, said her love of art had helped her to "take charge of her life" after three brain operations.

The grandmother-of-one, who has spent years battling ill health, will host her show at Harrods of Hingham from 1 to 31 May.

"The key message from this exhibition is to live your life," she said.

The show will feature about 25 large oil canvases, with Ms Roach juggling preparations while struggling with severe side effects from treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Ms Roach's mother, also an artist, compiled a photo diary of her daughter's life-threatening illness as a way of explaining to her grandchildren what was happening

It is one of a string of health problems Ms Roach has suffered since collapsing the day before her 32nd birthday in 2009.

Doctors diagnosed a burst brain aneurysm and told her mother she might not survive.

The single parent spent five weeks in a coma, but on waking up said she was determined to live for her children, Ashleigh and Leo, now 26 and 19.

The close call also reignited her childhood passion for art.

"I was so worried about my daughter when I nearly died - her father had passed away due to mental health problems the year before," said Ms Roach.

"I thought - she's nearly lost two parents in two years.

"But it also fuelled this passion to achieve anything I wanted in this life that is so short."

Ms Roach pictured recently with her daughter Ashleigh and mother Sharon (left to right)

Following the life-threatening bleed, the photographer's model underwent two unsuccessful brain operations.

Then a year to the day after her aneurysm, Ms Roach had open brain surgery, with doctors telling her she had just a 30% chance of surviving.

She said she clung to the message her dying grandmother told her a few months earlier: "Live your life and be happy".

It is now a central theme of her art.

With art one of the only physical things she could do afterwards, she enrolled on a course, eventually ending up with two degrees.

She said her studies also led to her becoming a muse for Norfolk artist Bruer Tidman.

While Ms Roach has posed countless times for photographers and artists, she said she had now come to embrace images of her body in her own art.

She said her newfound purpose had made her reset her life following several abusive relationships while younger.

Ms Roach, whose father is originally from Trinidad, said her illness had also made her reflect on growing up as mixed race in a predominately white town and never feeling "good enough".

Ms Roach, who is now writing a second book, said she felt it was an "opportunity and honour" to have her own art exhibition

She credits her partner of three years for being her "biggest strength" and giving her the confidence to secure her solo show.

"I can't put into words what it means for me to have this exhibition - it's such an opportunity and honour," she said.

"I'd feel lost without the painting: it's a release, it's therapeutic... it's helped me enormously."