ALIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
page 1 of 5
contents
of issue 76
back
issues
the
gazette
recipes
small
ads
contacting
us
weblinks
Gary Cartwright knows what it's like to live with a life-threatening
condition. For the past few years he's been in and out of hospital for
major surgery. Like many artists his experience of life-threatening illness,
and the anger, loss, pain and suffering which accompanies it, form a common
thread in his work.
HIV has provided Gary with first-hand experience of all these emotions,
despite his HIV negative status, as he explained to me when he came to
London in January to present one of his drawings to the Terrence Higgins
Trust for its annual charity auction at Christie's.
"In 1999 my partner died of Aids. I nursed him through the illness,
sat with him when he died, washed his body, put him in his coffin and
stayed with him until they put him in the ground. At
the same time I was seriously ill with a tumour, which required surgery,
and I had a number of strokes."
In the period immediately following the death of his partner, Gary, full
of anger at the
behaviour of his partner's family and recovering from a nervous breakdown,
