A Part-time Care Assistant/Part-time Artist Starts New Project to Honour Our Soldiers

Kirsty is a healthcare assistant from East Grinstead, who in her spare time paints canvases, predominantly of soldiers and poppies.

When she isn’t working her day job at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Kirsty Chapman spends her days creating beautiful art dedicated to war veterans and our fallen soldiers. She creates paintings, usually on canvas and they tend to heavily feature poppies, each imprinted using her own fingerprints which Kirsty says is “to represent the unique mark each soldier makes on History”.

Kirsty sells her amazing canvas paintings to help raise money for various military charities and has even gifted several of them to different veterans and businesses.

Kirsty is now currently seeking help from soldiers and veterans to complete her next painting titled ‘Path to Peace’ and was recently featured on BBC News regarding this project!

The painting will be a larger version of her ‘Poppy Path’ canvases but instead of the poppies being painted on using her own fingerprints, Kirsty is inviting soldiers and veterans to add one or two of their own fingerprints.

Using the unique prints of these amazing people, over time this will build up a path of poppies. Kirsty said “Over time I hope to have made a canvas with hundreds of individual prints, symbolising the mark each soldier leaves on history. These prints can never be erased and will serve as a reminder of the sacrifices that are made for  us all.”

There has been interest from all over the country so Kirsty will be travelling around a lot once restrictions have relaxed to collect the prints, having said that, she has also had several sent to her through the post from all over the country during lockdown that she has carefully added to her piece.

For the local veterans and soldiers, Kirsty will hopefully be setting up at the local museum in East Grinstead for a day allowing for the veterans and soldiers to drop in their print and also be provided with the opportunity to write a short dedication in a special book which will accompany the painting.

This is to be confirmed in the new year once restrictions ease, but she is aiming for completion by Spring/ Summer 2021 as she wants to give ‘Path to Peace’ the time it deserves.

To see more of Kirsty’s wonderful work click here to visit her website.