From ‘terminal’ to seven years on – North Devon exhibition explores cancer journey

A powerful art exhibition that seeks to make sense of one woman’s cancer journey – from being labelled ‘terminal’ to still being here seven years later - has left visitors to a Barnstaple gallery deeply moved.

A Tamoxifen Diary runs at Art@The Strand in Barnstaple until 4pm tomorrow (Friday, October 10) and is all the work of local artist and sculptor Dawn Brookes-Ensor.

The showcase of 365 surrealist recycled paper collages reflects Dawn’s seven year cancer journey and tries to make sense of her struggles with the hormone-blocking drug Tamoxifen which has been used to treat her breast cancer.

Above: North Devon artist Dawn Brookes-Ensor hopes her exhibition A Tamoxifen Diary will help her and other breast cancer survivors find some peace and healing by sharing her experience through artwork. Credit: Simon Ellery

Dawn’s experience with cancer has been a rollercoaster and at times a medical nightmare – she says she has almost died five times due to the treatment she received for her ER+ breast cancer.

The 365 pieces of artwork represent each day of a particularly difficult year, during which she says she received treatment for PTSD due to a traumatic life or death incident, had more surgery, dealt with a ‘hard menopause’ created by Tamoxifen and chemotherapy, as well as suffered some ‘major life body blows’.

With ongoing health issues and pain, she is now facing a crossroads where her choice is to continue taking Tamoxifen for another five years or face the prospect of her cancer reoccurring.

Dawn is the facilitator of Fine Art Rooms in Barnstaple, a new artists’ collective and non-profit organisation that helps artists and the wider community access art and creativity as well as studios, workshop and exhibition spaces.

The visitors’ book for A Tamoxifen Diary has been full of praise for the work, with many saying it was ‘deeply moving’, others felt it was ‘brave’ and ‘bold’ while one person simply said ‘I am blown away!’

Above: Some of the comments from visitors.

Speaking about her motivation behind this work, Dawn said: “As an artist, my natural reaction to make sense of this life or death situation is to make art.

I’ve been on my cancer journey for seven years now since June 2018 and it’s been full of ups and downs. I was told I was terminal at the time of diagnosis, but refused to believe it.

“This has given me a very different outlook on life. I seize the day at every opportunity.”

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Dawn said the exhibition seemed to resonate with people, with several recounting their own experiences and said she would be setting up an Art for Wellbeing course as a consequence of holding the exhibition and seeing the need for it in the community.

She added: “My solo exhibition is a retrospective at the whole time period and I have made artworks to try and understand how it has changed me and maybe that can start a dialogue for people to understand a cancer patients point of view and also their own relationship with life and death.

“One viewer was moved to tears by the collection of memories and images, as it helped them.

“I hope some healing and peace can come about from this exposure of a part of my life.”

You can view A Tamoxifen Diary at Art@The Strand (at 10A opposite the mosaic and Tea on the Taw) in Barnstaple until 4pm today (Thursday) and from 10am to 4pm on the final day tomorrow (Friday).

You can find out more about Fine Art Rooms at https://fineartrooms.co.uk