When Evansdale artist Greg Abbott had a devastating stroke in 2012, it left him paralysed on the right side of his body, and there were doubts about whether he would survive, let alone walk, or even paint again.
Following an ongoing and death-defying road to recovery, the 55-year-old’s progress will be celebrated this weekend with his first art exhibition.
Mr Abbott’s lifelong love of painting started when he was a student at Otago Boys’ High School.
Although he went on to become a forestry worker, he continued to do art as a hobby.
By the time he was 41, he was living his best life.
He was the manager of a logging yard in Dunedin, he had a loving partner and he had three young children.
But then one day at work, he fell down and everything went black.
His colleagues called an ambulance and he was taken to Dunedin Hospital where he was diagnosed as having had a heart attack and ‘‘a massive stroke’’.
They gave him anticoagulants and clot-busting medications and a brain surgeon removed part of his skull to give his brain room to swell without building up too much pressure.
However, after the surgery, the doctors said his pupils were ‘‘fixed and dilated’’ and told his family they thought he was ‘‘brain dead’’.
His partner Merica van Looy said she was devastated and Mr Abbott remained on life support for a month while decisions were made about his future.
Miss van Looy said it was not the first time he had ‘‘come back from the dead’’.
Mr Abbott had other major health complications associated with his condition, including a saddle pulmonary embolism — a rare, life-threatening condition in which a massive blood clot gets wedged at the intersection where the main pulmonary artery splits into the left and right lungs.
‘‘Most people don’t make it through,’’ Miss van Looy said.
‘‘I don’t know how Greg did.
‘‘All over the hospital, staff say he is ‘the cat with nine lives’ — he just wouldn’t die.’’
In the weeks and months after, he became ‘‘frustrated’’ that he could no longer walk, read, drink alcohol or ‘‘sit around and talk rubbish with his mates’’.
‘‘It was a pain in the neck,’’ he said.
But the one thing from his previous life he really missed was painting.
So, alongside physiotherapy to get himself walking again, he started off by just painting spirals — over and over — and in the years since, he has taught himself how to paint again, left-handed.
‘‘It was the best therapy,’’ he said.
‘‘My right hand is done, but left-handed drawing and painting still allows me wonderful expression.’’
Mr Abbott said his paintings were not better than before.
Rather, they were ‘‘just different’’ — mainly landscapes around the Blueskin/Waitati area.
Now he is delighted the Blueskin Gallery is celebrating his progress by holding an exhibition of his past and present artworks tomorrow.
The exhibition will show the journey of his recovery, moving from his spiral phase, to his more recent paintings.
Mr Abbott said he hoped some of the artworks would be sold at the exhibition.
Asked what he would use the money for, unsurprisingly, he said, ‘‘more art supplies’’.
