Hidden Havens
70 x 50 cm
Collaged canvas with acrylic details
2022

Created after moving to the Kent coast with my young daughter, this work grew from reflections during Refugee Week. The collaged sea holds the word Heaven, a homage to families who have risked everything crossing waters that too often take lives—especially children.

The work considers how parents, in hope of a better future, send their children forward, sometimes alone. Standing on Folkestone’s shore, where on clear days France is visible across the Channel, I wondered: Would I? Would you? If safety and happiness lay on the other side, would we not also risk it, for our children?

At its heart, Hidden Havens is about love, survival, and the universal wish for our children to be happy.