Homeless artist David Bedford started drawing just to “keep him on the straight and narrow” while he was on London’s streets – but now he’s hoping his artwork holds the key to helping him out of homelessness for good.

Bedford will be showcasing his artwork at his first-ever exhibition on 18 and 19 May thanks to the help of homelessness charity and Indian restaurant Punjab Covent Garden.

The 57-year-old, who has been sleeping rough on and off in London since 2019, is hoping sales of his artwork will fund a move indoors to take up factory work in Lincolnshire.

“This is my first exhibition – I’m excited and nervous all in the same thing,” Bedford told the Big Issue.

“I got into drawing on the street. It helped me to keep myself sane and stopped me going down a path of drink or drugs. It kept me on the straight and narrow so to speak.

“People go through bad times but you’ve just to keep moving forwards. As long as you can keep yourself occupied then you’re not feeling sorry for yourself. When I was doing my artwork I wasn’t thinking about how bad the situation was that I was in.”

Bedford left the UK in 2009 to start backpacking around Europe, living and working in Malta, Sicily, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland and France while on his travels.

But Brexit forced him back to the UK when changing work regulations saw job opportunities dry up.

Big Issue is demanding an end to poverty this general election. Will you sign our open letter to party leaders?

Bedford returned to the UK but was unable to access the benefits system after being out of the country for so long, leaving him with little option but to start sleeping rough in London.

That was when he found solace in art, drawing in Shoe Lane Library in London’s Square Mile and selling then when he was allowed in Pret a Manger with the idea of making a living from selling his sketches.

But he hit a stumbling block as he could not afford a street traders’ licence to sell his artwork on the street legally.

“For £45 a day to lash out for a licence then you wouldn’t be on the street. And there’s no guarantee that you are going to earn £45 a day,” he said.

Bedford has now joined forces with Under One Sky – the homelessness charity that supports him – to advocate for free or lower-priced licensed art spaces for homeless artists.

The charity’s trustee Amrit Maan, who is the managing director of Punjab Covent Garden, has also opened the restaurant’s Shaftesbury wing to Bedford to showcase his work with the goal of earning enough cash to help himself off the streets.

“There is work up there (in Lincolnshire) and plenty of it. But I need to get up there and have a place to go and get the work. You could argue the fact that if you’re homeless you could just go up there but there are more facilities for the homeless down here than there are up there,” said Bedford.

“It’s not totally off my back. The artwork is but I wouldn’t be in the position without Under One Sky. They’re the ones that have given me the chance to do the exhibition.”

He added: “Each brush tells a story of resilience and hope, turning adversity into art, and hopefully, a place to call home.”

Mikkel Juel Iversen, Under One Sky founder, added: “David’s art is his fishing rod but he was denied access to the lake. This exhibition is a lake created for David to empower him to end his status as homeless.”

David Bedford’s artwork will be on show at the Punjab Shaftesbury Wing on 18-19 May. To support, donate to Under One Sky’s campaign for Bedford here.

If you are under the age of 35, it is likely that you’ll have no direct connection to a period of Northern Irish history known as the Troubles. However, as a Belfast artist, born in 1968, it was sadly familiar to me. It is through living in the midst of this conflict and, ultimately the experience of peace, that originally inspired one of my most personally important bodies of work.  

Silent Testimony is a collective portrait of 18 people whose lives were impacted, and continue to be affected, by the Troubles. It is about right now. The legacy and fall-out of conflict. What is left behind when society talks about moving on. The 18 large-scale portraits, which I started painting in 2014, in many ways represent tens of thousands of people across Northern Ireland who lived, and still live, with the trauma of loss and unresolved grief; experiences that – even today – are being replayed in countries all over the world. These portraits acknowledge that the bereaved and wounded still walk among us. Ten years on, they remain as relevant as the day I painted them. 

In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was signed. It was a moment of hope for the future. Conflict was consigned to history. However, I remember reading the published documents at that time and it occurred to me immediately that there was little written which related to victims and survivors of that period of recent history. This stayed with me, and over time, I realised that this massive section of our community was, in a sense, paying the price for our peace. When I began making large-scale portraits in 2010, I felt I had found the vehicle through which I could explore this deeply held view as an artist. Seeking a second opinion, I spoke to WAVE Trauma Centre, who provide care and support for people affected by the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and they agreed that responding with a body of work of this nature could be important. In the wake of this, I therefore started working with WAVE to make an initial selection of sitters for Silent Testimony.  

• Top 5 books about the Troubles, chosen by bestselling author Henry Hemming 
• Playwright David Ireland: ‘Why I can’t seem to stop writing about the Troubles’

As an artist, I’m perhaps best known for my portraits of the late Queen Elizabeth II, president Bill Clinton and celebrities like Brad Pitt and Ed Sheeran, but I’ve always wanted my paintings to strip away the ‘celebrity’, revealing the common humanity that connects us all – to see behind the facade. This felt like an appropriate approach to take for Silent Testimony, so I started the process by creating drawings from life, before working on my large-scale canvases. I work on up to 10 canvases at a time – I often need to set one portrait aside to dry while I paint the next. My working practice is all about layering, building up that sense of a person on the canvas, almost like a landscape of the face. 

It is important for me that my sitters feel comfortable, so I asked them where they wanted us to meet for the preliminary drawings. Some came to my studio, while others sat in WAVE’s headquarters, but a few invited me to their homes. I will always remember the sitting with Paul Reilly at his home in Warrenpoint. His daughter Joanne was killed on 12 April 1989, when she was just 20 years old. Joanne had been working in a builder’s yard when a no-warning bomb exploded beside her office. She was killed instantly. In memory of Joanne, Paul invited me to paint him sitting in Joanne’s bedroom, kept exactly as she had left it that day. The clock on the wall is stopped at 9.58am, the time of her death. 

I listened as each of the sitters told me their stories during our time together; outpourings of sorrow and extreme pain. Paul had never really spoken about his daughter’s death until that moment, and I really emptied all of that emotion back into the painting. It is my hope that visitors to the exhibition witness that. 

Silent Testimony has been an important part of my life for 10 years. Now on display for the first time in London at the National Portrait Gallery, it is my hope that Silent Testimony will serve as a space for contemplation and perhaps healing, allowing the millions who visit the gallery each year to engage and reflect personally. 

Silent Testimony by Colin Davidson is a free display at the National Portrait Gallery. It runs until 23 February 2025.

It’s 8am on a crisp Tuesday morning in my local park. The Leaf Man emerges from the mist. In certain artistic circles, and among his thousands of Instagram followers, the intricately hand-cut designs that Aasen Stephenson painstakingly carves into leaves are highly coveted, and they’re all crafted in his Northampton studio.   

The conditions, I’m told, make this morning perfect for our meeting. “You have to collect the leaves at the right time,” Stephenson explains as we walk.

“I go out on a morning with a nice dew like today’s, and after a windy night is always best.” 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter.

I pick up the first leaf I see and hold it out for inspection. A shake of the head. “You want a fresh fallen leaf; no decay, symmetrical, no folds or creases.” 

Finding the perfect leaf proves to be more difficult than I anticipated. “What you lose in time, you make up for in money,” The Leaf Man says. “When I first started out, I was experimenting with cutting paper or leather scraps and using that as a stencil to spray-paint paper. 

“But then you think of all that material, the cost and waste that’s left over – especially if something goes wrong and you have to scrap a piece.  

“When I started out with art, doing it seriously, I had no money to live – let alone buy art supplies! But leaves… leaves are free and beautiful before I’ve even turned them into art.” 

Working with leaves is different to using more traditional materials. They’re more delicate, each with its own personality already imprinted on its surface. Stephenson wanted to find a way to keep the leaf’s essence while still adding his own mark. 

“One day, I just went for it,” he said of his first leaf-cutting experience. “It was tricky but I managed it. Then, the next day, they had all curled up and were completely unusable. That was the first learning curve. I went back to the drawing board and figured out how to dry and press them to work with them better. 

“The leaves are so delicate it’s like cutting a crisp without it breaking, you have to have such a steady hand. I love using things nature has made. It’s just a simple leaf; it’s grown, given us oxygen, and then fallen to the floor and back to the earth. It’s then trodden on and squashed into the mud so for me to take a few and make people look at them differently feels like a responsibility.  

“Since I started making them, I’m forever just looking at leaves and marvelling at their skill to keep us alive when we care so little about them.” 

Even before turning to leaves, Stephenson’s passion for nature influenced his work. “My studio is full of rocks and shells, feathers, plants, and just about anything I find out and about,” he says – and he’s not lying. When we arrive at his studio from Northampton’s Abington Park, the park that inspired his first foray into leaf cutting, and whose museum has displayed his work in two exhibitions to date, I’m astounded by the trinkets cluttering the space.  

It’s a cacophony of natural objects; twisted branches, unusually coloured pebbles, bits of bark and driftwood. 

“Nothing beats what nature makes,” he says, tracing along the veins of a dried leaf on his worktop with his fingertip. “It really speaks to me. I can’t remember ever not liking it and now it’s my entire life.” 

For our Earth Day magazine special, we asked The Leaf Man to create a cover for us with a simple message. This is the result. Look for it on sale from your local vendor, 22-28 April.

Check out more of Stephenson’s artwork

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy!

If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play

The government “has no compassion” for neurodiverse and disabled people, a leading artist has warned – but there is “strength in community”.

Last week, Rishi Sunak announced plans to strip GPs of the power to sign people off work. The prime minister claimed the policy will tackle the UK’s so-called ‘sick note culture.’ But leading disability charity Scope has described it as “a full-on assault on disabled people”.

Performance artist Ray Young agrees. The writer – whose award-winning show OUT opens at Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler’s Wells in London today (25 April) – has warned that ableism is “entrenched in our working systems and capitalist culture”.

“[The culture is] work now, faster, faster, faster. For some people, that’s not possible,” they said. “We have a dangerous government at the moment which is threatening people’s rights in terms of disability and mental health. There’s no compassion there.”

When we prioritise “speed, productivity and profit” over creativity, care and wellness, something gets broken, they added. But art can “carve out” spaces to heal.

Ray Young’s interdisciplinary projects explored activism, queerness, race and neurodiversity – all of which, they say, intersect in complex ways that toxic political rhetoric can’t do justice to.

With OUT, the artist hopes to defiantly challenge homophobia and transphobia. It is in some ways a dance show – but it’s also a “conversation between two bodies,” the publicity material explains, a vividly lit piece of performance art that “reclaims Dancehall and celebrates queerness amongst the bittersweet scent of oranges”.

Inspired by global struggles for LGBTQ+ rights, it also looks at colonial legacy and the complexity of queer Caribbean identity.

It’s “for and about marginalised communities”, Young says – and while allies are more than welcome, “educating” people isn’t the show’s primary intention.

“We are making it for people to come and be able to see themselves,” they added. “It’s not my job to prove to anybody that I have the right to exist.”

OUT was first performed in 2017 when it won the A Place to Dance Brighton Fringe Award and nominated for the 2017 Total Theatre and The Place Award for Dance.

Since then, Young fears things have “regressed” – particularly for those who are neurodiverse or disabled.

Last week, Rishi Sunak voiced fears that “benefits [are] becoming a lifestyle choice,” while work and pensions secretary Mel Stride has described mental health culture as “going too far”. The government has also “tightened” work capability assessments in an attempt to bring down the Treasury’s welfare bill.

A record high of 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness – but presenting these people as “shirkers” is “unbelievably damaging and unhelpful“, Richard Kramer, chief executive of disability charity Sense, told the Big Issue last week.

Meanwhile, the government and right wing media are increasingly hostile towards trans people. Last week, Amnesty International accused the government of “scapegoating” genderqueer people.

“The negative rhetoric by the government about the dangers of so-called gender ideology, healthcare for young trans people, as well as the push against LGBTQ-inclusive sex and relationship education is harmful and extremely damaging,” said Amnesty International UK and Liberty.

The attacks on marginalised communities are all linked, Ray Young says.

“It’s one thing after the other. One week it’s sick note culture and mental health. The next week it’s anti-LGBTQ+ and trans healthcare, the week after that it’s something else,” they said. “Every week there’s an attack on some marginalised community.”

“It is tiring… [but] it also kind of charges me, gives me a fire in my belly to carve out spaces for our community, because if we don’t, nobody else will.”

In such a toxic political environment, art can help people come together, they added.

“We’re stronger together. It’s about supporting each other. It’s about being a community together. It’s about finding your people and being there to support each other. Queer communities rally around each other in times of difficulty… that’s what we have to do.”

“Just because something is different doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

You can find tickets for OUT, playing Thursday 25 & Friday 26 April at Sadler Wells’ Theatre, here.

In the late 1990s, a young photographer joined the ranks at the Big Issue. Tim Hetherington had read Classics and English at Oxford then, after graduating, he used £5,000 left to him in his grandmother’s will to travel the world. Journeying through south-east Asia opened his eyes and changed his life. He returned home determined to tell stories through photography.

His first job was as a trainee at the Big Issue. He’d photograph our vendors and star interviewees, definitely preferring to focus on the lives of those whose stories often went untold.

This work led him to West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria. Places that had experienced conflict, where the people were still counting the cost. He was embedded with the US Army in Afghanistan, then went to cover the uprising in Libya. It was there, on 20 April 2011 he was killed in a mortar attack in the town of Misrata.

Tim Hetherington is now recognised as one of the country’s most important photojournalists. His archive – including the work he undertook for the Big Issue – has been obtained by the Imperial War Museum, and a major exhibition opening this week, Storyteller: Photography by Tim Hetherington, highlights his remarkable talent for revealing the human stories caught up in conflict.

Greg Brockett, curator of the exhibition, talks us through some of his striking pictures:

This work [main image, above] originated with the Big Issue. They gave him the opportunity to photograph the Millennium Stars when they first came to the UK, then he was invited to go over to Liberia and continue that work. That’s where his connection with Liberia started.

He came to know these young people really well. It was his first real engagement with conflict and I think it set this idea that he wanted to treat conflict differently. He didn’t want to photograph it in a way that was similar to the news media, which wanted to get across tropes around guns and violence and trauma.

The Big Issue pictures definitely had an impact on how his work developed. He focused on the consequences of conflict, the human perspective and human impact. I see that early work as being fundamental.

May 2003: A woman carries cassava leaves to the central market in Tubmanburg, Liberia 

June 2003: The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) advance on the Liberian capital, Monrovia, during the Second Liberian Civil War (1999-2003)

With Hetherington’s Liberia work, you see his long-term approach. He went back to Liberia and revisited some of the people he had first encountered to give a broader perspective, rather than just capturing the conflict itself.

June 2003: A Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) combatant in Liberia

June 2002: An amputee straps on his prosthetic limb before taking to the field during a friendly football match at a war veterans camp situated on the outskirts of Luanda, Angola

June 2008: Soldiers from the United States Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade during a 15-month deployment in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan 

April 2011: An anti-Gaddafi combatant during the Libyan revolution

We don’t know how he was going to develop this work in Libya. It’s unfinished. It looks as though he was interested in the idea of performance in conflict; the people he is photographing being aware of his presence and how that might affect the scenes that he was capturing.

April 2011: Self-portrait, taken in Libya

This is the last self-portrait Hetherington took. He was an unusually self-reflective photographer, especially later in his career. He was interested in how he as the photographer was influencing the scenes he was capturing. We have brought Hetherington into the exhibition. He’s there as a talking head on video, in diary extracts. People can relate to the decisions, the ethical decisions, photographers sometimes have to make. That is as much a part of understanding conflict as the images and the events themselves.

We’re hearing a lot about journalists and photojournalists who are at risk, doing this incredibly dangerous job they do. That’s part of the narrative. Hetherington was someone working in Libya and he wasn’t the only photojournalist who was mortally wounded that day.

Storyteller: Photography by Tim Hetherington runs at the Imperial War Museum, London, 20 April – 29 September 2024

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy!

If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue or give a gift subscription. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play

When artist Christopher Hoggins received an eviction notice from his landlord of 13 years in 2020, it began a lengthy court process which saw him eventually lose his home in 2022.

Now, Hoggins has turned his painful experiences into something powerful. The 53-year-old, who lives with autism and has heart problems, has collected his Escher-like illustrations based on his situation in a unique art book, Roof-less.

“I was oblivious to just how bad the housing crisis was before my landlord told me that they were selling up,” Hoggins told the Big Issue.

“Like with many traumatic life events, you suddenly learn an awful lot in a short space of time, some of it was shocking and some absolutely crazy. Once it was all over, I wanted to do something with that knowledge and make everything that I went through mean something and also to process the trauma in a useful and positive way.”

The cost of living crisis and record-high rents have seen a rising number of people facing a no-fault eviction since the Westminster government paused evictions during the pandemic. 

In Scotland, measures pausing evictions and capping rent increases due to the rising cost of living have only just expired.

The Scottish government unveiled its own Housing (Scotland) Bill last week with plans to introduce long-term rent controls and give tenants stronger eviction protections as well as new rights to keep pets and decorate homes.

Rent reforms are also on the way in England to scrap no-fault evictions.

However, the Renters Reform Bill has been long-delayed following opposition from Conservative MPs and last week it was revealed that many of the bill’s measures are set to be “watered down”.

Hoggins’ own experience of eviction has convinced him that no-fault evictions need to be consigned to the past.

He kept a journal to chronicle how his eviction was affecting his life between receiving the notice and when he was finally forced out of his home.

This then formed the backbone of his artbook when he was able to work on the project.

“Putting the book together was quite traumatic in places,” said Hoggins. “I’d made a few notes and I keep a daily journal and I’m always drawing but I didn’t feel comfortable making a proper start until I felt ’safe’.

“Some of the pictures are incredibly dark and I tried to balance them out with light ones so I didn’t lose the plot. I walked away and came back a few times.

“It didn’t help that my mother and a close friend died in the middle of this but that’s half the point, evictions don’t stop because you’ve had enough, they don’t take sick breaks, the process grinds on regardless of your health, feelings and state of mind.”

Roof-less: The Housing Crisis in Words and Pictures is available to buy now on Etsy for £15.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? We want to hear from you. Get in touch and tell us more.

Acclaimed street artist My Dog Sighs is auctioning his work off for the first time, with all proceeds going to the Big Issue to help millions of people in the UK affected by poverty.

For two decades, the Portsmouth legend has created eye-catching street art from lost and discarded objects, hiding free art and painting murals in more than 20 countries.

Now, he’s selling one of his iconic glassy reflective eye paintings – Reclaiming The Lost (Purple), 2023 – for a good cause.

“Having had the pleasure to guest edit the Big Issue last summer, it’s an honour to be able to auction a painting through Bonhams and pass the funds raised to the brilliant work the Big Issue do,” the artist said.

• My Dog Sighs: ‘The power of art is it makes people look at the world in a different way’
• Artist pays tribute to Big Issue vendors in thought-provoking project: ‘Ordinary moments go unnoticed’

“When the Big issue approached me I instantly saw the parallels to my creative endeavours and their ethos of helping those struggling and lost, to work themselves to a position where they can find themselves and their place/purpose.”

My Dog Sighs’ projects are dotted across the world, ranging from 540 eyes adorned on a Roman hospital – each containing a portrait of someone who was born or died in the hospital – to one in his hometown celebrating Portsmouth FC’s 1939 FA Cup win. He boasts acclaimed works in China, Australia, South Korea, USA and Israel.

Yet his illustrious artistic career had humble beginnings. My Dog Sighs started creating art in the early 2000s while working full time as a primary school teacher. 

Rather than trying to cash in on his early artistic creations, he created Free Art Fridays, creating something with found objects and depositing them on his Friday commute.

“The power of art is that it just makes people look at the world in a slightly different way,” My Dog Sighs told the Big Issue last year. “As a street artist, what I find really powerful is the idea that it’s not just people looking for art that are seeing it. Every demographic walks down the street and can stumble across a piece of street art.

“And what’s more special than stumbling across a piece of treasure when you’re wandering around?”

He has previously spoken about his passion for ‘giving back’ to the streets and the people who sleep rough. His 2023 project INSIDE was partly inspired by this idea of reclaiming lost and hidden space, transforming derelict areas with the power of art.

“There are scary statistics, that for every homeless person there are 10 empty houses. That blows my mind,” he says. “So it builds on this idea of being aware of how we can look at lost materials, lost spaces, lost people – and how can we think about them in a different way.

“How can we use our creativity to look at the world in a different way? It is up to us to save these lost spaces. But it is our role to help people as well, isn’t it?”

The auction ends tomorrow (20 March). At time of writing, the highest bid is £5,500.

Banksy’s new artwork is a “brilliant but horrifying” reflection on the “abuse” of urban nature, a conservation campaign group has declared.

The acclaimed street artist’s new mural in North London’s Finsbury Park, just a stone’s throw from the Big Issue’s offices, shows a spread of green paint behind a real, heavily pruned tree.

Viewed from an angle, the paint mimics the tree’s foliage. Under its shade, a stencil of a person holding a pressure hose stands, looking up.

The graffiti is a stark symbol of the “savage” treatment of city trees, said Giovanna Iozzi, the founder of the Haringey Tree Protectors group, who operate in the borough neighbouring where the mural is painted.

“This is very harsh pollarding. A cherry tree should not be treated like this… it’s a horror show,” she said.

“Savage pruning is basically chopping at a tree’s lifeblood, this tree should be blossoming and bursting into fruit at this year.”

Pollarding is a pruning system whereby the upper parts of the tree are removed. The practice limits the tree’s growth, and stops weak branches from falling off. Over-pruning, however, can prevent a tree from sprouting any foliage at all.

Islington Council says that the cherry tree chosen by Banksy is 40-50 years old and in declining health, with decay and fungi damage. However, Iozzi says that brutal pollarding is all too common – and that there are “ways to support trees even when they are sick”.

“Pollarding can be poorly, savagely done. You’re cutting off all of the tree’s biodiversity potential,” she said. “If it was in flower, it would support insects and birds this time of year.”

Iozzi’s Haringey group campaign to protect trees from “insurers, developers, and councils.” Local authorities often come under severe pressure to fell trees, as fallen branches can damage property and lead to costly insurance claims.

Islington Council says that it is managing the health of the tree.

“This fantastic piece from Banksy has sparked a real buzz across Islington and beyond, and we very much want the artwork to stay for people to enjoy,” said councillor Roulin Khondoker, executive member for equalities, culture and inclusion at Islington’s Council.

“Trees are a vital part of our work to tackle the climate emergency. We’ve planted nearly 900 in the last year alone, and we work hard to care for our trees and help them to thrive.”

London has about 8.4 million trees, making it one of the world’s largest urban forests. Under the London Environment Strategy, mayor Sadiq Khan plans to increase tree cover by 10% by 2050. This will require an ambitious planting regime; around 10,000 trees are felled across the capital every year.

Across the UK, affluent areas are much more likely to boast urban tree cover. According to 2021 research by the Woodland Trust, neighbourhoods with the highest income levels have more than double the tree cover per person than less affluent neighbourhoods, and they have nearly 20% less of the toxic pollutant nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

Iozzi said that Banksy’s artwork highlights the plight of urban nature more broadly.  

“I think he’s trying to highlight the issue – this is a microcosmic example of what we’re doing to nature and trees on a macro global level,” she added.

“I think he’s just making a really brilliant statement about how urban trees are really being abused. The image says it all, really.”

An acclaimed artist has paid tribute to Big Issue vendors who brave “freezing weather” to sell the magazine.

British artist Patrick Murphy is perhaps best known for his grand, surreal projects – like scattering rainbow pigeon sculptures around Soho or installing 200 resin seagulls throughout the French city of Le Havre.

But the Yorkshireman’s latest project is closer to home: he wants to capture normal people as they “travel from A to B in our towns and cities.”

“These ordinary moments often go unnoticed in our everyday lives, but one day I thought I would try and sketch pedestrians,” Murphy explained. “I enjoyed the process, it’s a piece of daily mindfulness for me as an artist.”

The artist’s latest subject is a Big Issue vendor, spotted through the window of the Tate Modern cafe.

“It was a bright but chilly February Saturday and I saw your vendor walking past braving the cold,” Murphy said.

“It made me think how cold it must be to stand outside trying to sell Big Issue magazines. So I thought I would try and draw him. We always support sellers by buying an issue when we pass.”

The work will feature in Murphy’s project ‘EVERYDAY PEOPLE’, a series of portraits capturing “unguarded, unposed situations” in the UK’s urban spaces. The overall series will feature 365 portraits set to be collected in an upcoming art book.

“I’m fascinated by how pedestrians use urban spaces and get around travelling from A to B; the clothes they wear, the bags they carry from plain carrier bags to designer ones, it all builds a narrative of a stranger,” Murphy said.

“Each day presents an opportunity to capture a story, focusing solely on the individual devoid of background distractions.”

Many artists have taken Big Issue vendors as their subjects. In January, Folkestone artist Shane Record’s painting of local seller Raheem Ahmed went viral, attracting acclaim on social media and in the Kent Town.

A new photo exhibition is putting the women forced to flee Ukraine in the spotlight two years on from the start of Vladimir Putin’s illegal war.

Leaving Ukraine will showcase Polly Braden’s powerful photography following six women as they escaped the war and rebuilt their lives, capturing everything from the highs and lows of job interviews, first days at school and gruelling night shifts.

“We know that millions of people have been uprooted, but what does this actual lived experience mean and look like for those individuals trying to forge new lives elsewhere, against the backdrop of war in their homeland? I wanted to make sure these less visible stories were told,” said Braden.

Around six million Ukrainians were displaced as a result of the war after Russia invaded the country on 24 February 2022.

The majority of people fleeing Ukraine were women and children with most men required to stay and fight off the invaders.

But that saw mothers, daughters, teenagers and babies in arms scattered across Europe to neighbouring nations like Poland, Moldova, Bulgaria and the UK.

More than 9,000 households who made the journey to England have asked their council for support to avoid homelessness, it was revealed recently.

Braden’s work looks to reveal the unseen burden of social care and dependency on women in wartime.

The photographer followed six girls and women – Sofia, Aliesia, Yuliia, Lena, Anya and Narine – as their circumstances evolved amid ongoing uncertainty.

Leaving Ukraine puts the focus on four central stories unfold, including three school friends dispersed across Europe forging new lives and continuing their education and a young graduate making a fresh start as a successful lawyer in London.

The exhibition also highlights a mother whose baby was born shortly after a perilous escape from Kherson starting a new life in Warsaw and two friends and their children who fled to Moldova with help from a kickboxing club, now struggling to find work in Italy.

“Through Polly Braden’s compassionate lens, we can finally see inspiring personal relationships that would usually be hidden from view,” said Emma Ridgway, the director of Foundling Museum.

“Presenting these compelling stories at the Foundling Museum echoes the constant challenges and agonising choices faced by women throughout history, including the sacrifices made to ensure the safety of their children and others. The exhibition also serves as a reminder of the wider refugee and migrant crisis and the profound consequences on the millions of women, children and young people who are currently displaced around the world.” 

Leaving Ukraine will be on show at London’s Foundling Museum from 15 March to 1 September. Details at foundlingmuseum.org.uk.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? We want to hear from you. Get in touch and tell us more.