Nela Fletcher was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer three years ago.
The first thing she asked her doctor was "What do my tumours look like?”.
"I'm a super-visual person and I'm also extremely attracted to medical image-making — like all the scans and X-rays — I think they have a very interesting aesthetic.
"So I was of course disappointed when I could not see the images of my tumours, but it created such a drive for me and a curiosity to dig deeper."
She connected with a former surgeon who shared his medical knowledge as well as extensive visual material.
From that, she started her drawing sketches.
Fletcher is also a retired contemporary dancer so she combined her art with her other passion to create her Tumour Ballet drawings.
" I always had a journal with me and a pen and I would draw, like, quite early on from the diagnosis.
"So I would collect what doctors said or I would translate it into imagery that I could go back and look at it."
Drawing was the easiest part for her — and a coping mechanism to deal with the cancer — but she confessed the decision to make it public was not an easy one.
However, due to the seriousness and the importance of the subject she allowed the art to speak louder than her own intimacy.
"It took quite a long time actually for me to make the decision to really work with it, which also means as an artist to go public with it, right?
"But I think it's extremely important to raise awareness for breast cancer and as well to raise awareness for early detection, because there is such a variety in how severe it can be and how lethal and there's different kinds of breast cancer and so on.
"So I thought it would be really important to share as well my story."
That journey resulted in the piece which last week received a merit award at the Parkin Drawing Prize, a national award dedicated to the medium of drawing.
It was the first time she had entered a drawing into the prestigious award and she was humbled by the recognition.
"I think to say just one thing on how I felt is not enough because I felt so many things at the same time — realising that whole story and how hard it was.
"I was able to flip it into something positive, right? Working with it, working through it, working with it and making something out of it that then ... got acknowledged. It was fantastic."
Fletcher was happy to be two years free from cancer — but the theme became part of a larger exhibition called "Monstrosity of Tiny Tumours" which will be showcased at the Art Attic Gallery in Invercargill from September 27 to October 19.
All the proceeds from the exhibition would be donated to the Cancer Society, she said.
"It's going to be drawing, video work, photography and maybe some objects. It is about giving cancer a face.
"As an artist, I want to make work that resonates. I want to make work that people can connect to."
