Photographing the Story Behind the Art: Sandy Howarth’s Life & Recovery
Photography is often about far more than recording what something looked like.
Sometimes, it’s about preserving a story.
I recently had the privilege of photographing artist Sandy Howarth’s Life & Recovery exhibition at the Fitzrovia Gallery in London—a body of work with an intensely personal story behind it.
Sandy is a London-based artist, author and former interior designer whose paintings explore experiences that have shaped her life. Born in Sri Lanka, she studied Art & Design at Derby Lonsdale College before continuing her studies at the Inchbald School of Design and Parsons School of Design in New York.
But the direction of Sandy’s life changed profoundly when her first-born son was diagnosed with autism.
She left her career as an interior designer in Dubai and became immersed in supporting and advocating for her son, developing her own teaching strategies and ultimately challenging the Local Authority over inadequacies in the provision for his educational needs.
Her experiences also led her to write her first book, No Matter What, published in 2009.
And eventually, they found another language.
Paint.
When paintings tell a story.
Sandy describes her work as incorporating colour, fluidity, structure, calmness, mystery and playfulness.
Yet there is something else running through it: story.
Her paintings aren’t isolated decorative pieces. They form collections that reflect different chapters of her life.
Her first collection, Silence Speaks, comprises 55 paintings telling the story of her journey with her son through art and poetic verse. A corresponding book is due to be published in September 2026.
Life & Recovery, the exhibition I photographed, contains 60 paintings created after her son moved into care.
Her current collection, Impressions & Portals to Freedom, continues that evolving story.
What I find particularly compelling about Sandy’s work is that she doesn’t remain within one artistic style.
Her work has moved through contemplative art and cubist forms towards finding meaning within impressions of nature. She describes it as an ever-unfolding process of questions and answers.
Perhaps that’s appropriate for work born from a life that itself has required constant adaptation.
Photographing Life & Recovery
Photographing an art exhibition presents a different challenge from photographing a person or an occasion.
The artwork already has its own voice. My job isn’t to compete with that. It’s to document the work faithfully while also capturing the atmosphere surrounding it—the relationship between individual paintings, the gallery space, the artist and the people experiencing the work.
With Life & Recovery, that felt particularly important because this isn’t simply a collection of paintings hanging together in a room.
Together, they tell part of Sandy’s story.
Photography allows those moments to continue existing after an exhibition has finished.
It creates a record for the artist, certainly, but it can also allow people who weren’t able to attend to experience something of the collection themselves.
Art as a way of processing experience
Sandy’s story also touches upon something that interests me beyond photography: the many different ways we process profound experiences. Creativity can provide an outlet for things that aren’t always easily expressed in words.
For Sandy, painting has become part of that process.
Silence Speaks reflects the journey of supporting her severely autistic son.
Life & Recovery came after he moved into care.
Even those collection titles tell us something. There is a before and an after. A period of intense caring and advocacy, followed by another chapter in which Sandy has had to discover what life looks like when that role changes.
Her story may resonate particularly strongly with other parents and carers whose lives have taken paths they could never have anticipated.
And that’s another reason I wanted to share it here.
Sandy isn’t only an artist.
She’s also an author who has transformed some of those experiences into work that may help other families feel understood.
The person behind the lens matters too.
Whether I’m photographing a wedding, an exhibition or another important occasion, I’m very conscious that I’m being invited into something that matters enormously to somebody else.
Sometimes that means knowing when to give direction. Sometimes it means helping somebody who feels uncomfortable in front of a camera relax.
And sometimes it means quietly stepping back and observing.
For an exhibition like Life & Recovery, I want the finished photographs to do more than show that paintings were hanging on walls. I want them to retain something of what it felt like to be there.
Because the artwork has a story.
The artist has a story.
And good photography should leave room for both.
About Sandy Howarth
Sandy Howarth is a London-based artist working in oil on canvas. Her collections include Silence Speaks, Life & Recovery and her ongoing collection Impressions & Portals to Freedom.
You can discover more about Sandy, her paintings and her writing on her website:
