winter, st. micheals mount (1997) Painting by Gill Mahoney

I was born in the Midlands in the post war years, not a choice place as far as I was concerned. My parents broke up, and my mother was very seriously ill so I was sent to live with an aunt when I was about two and half years old.
'You mummy is dead' she said 'I am to be your mummy now she has gone to heaven' she said. And I seemed to accept that and settle down very well with her family, my cousins because my brothers and we played long hours in the fields and by the river in Wiltshire. But, some years later my mother looking as though she had come back from the dead retrieved me and we returned to the midlands and the dereliction left by the war. She was unwell mentally and physically and in a sense I looked after her.

I was a very isolated child drawing became and natural choice of activity from a very young age. I covered any useable paper with drawings, and wore all the pencils to the but including my mothers lip liner. I started oil painting at age eight using a paint by numbers kit ( reverse side).
I had many years of training once I was eleven, and taught a little also. I was always somewhat of an outsider, and not compliant with the college styles of painting. In that sense I preferred it when I went my own way.
I began selling on a commission basis in my late teens, and continued to until family ructions, caused me to leave the area- abandoning everything to live in Sussex where I had been invited by my long lost father. He claimed he had a hotel and could give me one man shows etc etc. and had clients visiting and events where I could maximise my selling and showing. But it did not happen and I ended up stranded without family or friend in Sussex.
I suffered a nervous breakdown, which immobilised me for many years. I find some things very difficult to this day, such as invigilating at my own exhibitions. But eventually met my present partner
and we procured three children now grown up. I educated them at home, so art was left most of those years to be taken up again later. But when I did, it was a whole new kettle of fish.

• Nationality: ITALY
• Date of birth : unknown date
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Italian Artists