Art cathartic for leukaemia survivor

Metal spikes portray injections and lumbar punctures on the metal artworks of leukaemia survivor Daniel Redwood.

His Minor Inconvenience exhibition opened yesterday at Creative Tauranga and every piece in the exhibition is about the Tauranga man's journey through his struggle with leukaemia.

Mr Redwood was diagnosed with pre B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia four years ago and has been working on the stainless steel and copper artworks on and off since February. The main piece exhibited in the doorway represented the few days surrounding his initial diagnosis.

It is a large piece of stainless steel with the top half painted white representing the pre- diagnosis and the bottom black part the three days of limbo.

"I went in on the Friday and they said I had no white blood cells and if I lasted'til Monday they would start me on chemotherapy," Mr Redwood said.

The vertical lines and spikes are for every injection, lumbar puncture and all the tests on that first weekend.

Silver alloy applied to the middle represented the diagnosis.

"If we sell this painting we will donate half of the money to the leukaemia foundation, as they don't get any funding," Mr Redwood said.

City Scape is a black-and-white painted piece of stainless steel which is about the weeks Mr Redwood spent in his transplant bed at Auckland Hospital and the grey view he got to know so well.

Mr Redwood said working on his metal pieces was cathartic and was like working out on a boxing bag or at the gym.