Shropshire crash victim Grace making a name as artist
A young Shropshire woman who astounded doctors by surviving having suffered horrific brain injuries is making a name for herself in the art world.
Grace Currie is one of a handful of students from Shrewsbury College who have had their work chosen for an exhibition at one of the county's art galleries.
The exhibition – at Ironbridge Fine Arts Gallery – is a collection of work based upon the theme 'aide-mémoire', requiring the artists to draw on collective or personal memories to create artworks that serve as an aid to the memory.
It was a perfect title for Grace, who had to rebuilt her life and her memories, when she was hit by a car as she crossed the road in Baschurch in 2010 when she was 17. She was left with severe brain injuries. Twice resuscitated at the side of the road, the teenager from Bagley, near Ellesmere, spent weeks in intensive care when no-one able to say how much she would recover.
Today Grace is studying for an HND in photography in Shrewsbury.
She said the title was a chance to show people how a brain injury affects her memory.
Her nine images of the sea, taken from a boat, begin very clear and then as the boat speeds up become blurred and faded.
"That is like my memory, blurred and faded," she said.
"It is very hard to remember sometimes."
She said she loved her photography and the course at Shrewsbury College.
"All the art is the exhibition is really good," she said. Her father, Graeme, said: "This exhibition is a milestone for Grace.
"Her work, like that of the other students, had to be submitted to the fine arts gallery and those chosen for the exhibition were chosen because of their quality."
"We are all very very proud of her."
"She continues to inspire and astound us with her progress."
Art & Design tutor Ed Catley said: "The diverse work on show references memories that are personal or collective, showing how they can be recorded or fictionalised through aesthetic creation.
"The students are very pleased to be exhibiting again in the community, providing accomplished and considered work for everyone to see."
The free entry exhibition will be on display until November 25.
