In spring 2004 I was awarded an arts council grant to be an artist in residence in Palestine. My aim has been to create a body of artwork to reflect and celebrate the lives and traditions of Palestinian women.

I have worked in association with Amnesty International as a painter for human rights since 1988. This project has allowed me a sensitive insight into the rich but devastated Palestinian culture as I attempt to document the daily lives of women who are the innocent victims of a brutal conflict; whose most basic human rights are being eroded by life under Israeli occupation.

As a woman artist, I was able to share a special intimacy with the women from a predominantly Muslim culture. I spent time in towns, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank but because of the extremely volatile situation I was unable to visit Gaza. My exhibition will tour Palestine from October 2005 and will be shown at the Qattan Center in Gaza City, which I hope will allow me the opportunity to complete the visual story.

Whilst in Palestine I have done "Painting for Human Rights Workshops," at the Young Artist's Forum; with the children at the Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah, and at the Community Centre in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. I have also put in place a cultural exchange between children at schools in Bethlehem and Brighton.

My Palestinian friend in England had taught me basic Arabic and words of friendship. During my last visit in autumn 2004, I stayed with her husband's family in the village of Bidyah to help with the olive harvest. The hospitality, generosity and warmth of the Palestinians is unlike anything I have previously experienced. I use my artwork to celebrate their culture and encourage an awareness and understanding of a people and a nation who are to be hidden from the eyes of the world behind an eight metre apartheid wall.