From Darkness to Light

September 23rd to November 5th, 2022
Toni ONley Gallery

Exhibition Artist:

Deborah Dowsett

Written by: Deborah Dowsett

My interest in art began early. In grade school I excelled in art and always felt deep down that I was an artist. In 1982, I began attending the Alberta College of Art, but due to a severe eating disorder and drinking issues, I dropped out after my second year. I was ashamed and felt like a failure. I grew up in a very dysfunctional household, which took years to overcome. I felt disconnected from others and very self conscious and in need of constant approval.

After two back surgeries and two children, I began needing pain medication to help me cope with the duties of being a wife and mother.

In 1992, I began painting watercolours as well as doing murals and theatre sets. Unfortunately after being prescribed Oxycontin for my pain, my problem with drugs became a battle. When my doctor realized that I was abusing my medication he stopped giving me anything for pain control. This began a cycle of street drug use that would eventually take me to the downtown east side of Vancouver. I remember walking the dark and lonely streets at night. When it got late and the traffic would slow down, the constant buzzing of the street lamps, became deafening. I was alone in a scary situation. Other addicts became my friends. I listened to their stories of how they ended up in the same position. One woman I met began using heroin after her daughter was murdered. I met many people who like me, began because of prescribed medication. A common thread was always untreated childhood trauma.

No one decides to become homeless and addicted. These people are fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and our children. This is a mental health issue, not a criminal one, and has nothing to do with morality. I just watched a documentary on the drug crisis. Twice as many people have died of drug overdoses during the Covid pandemic, then all the people who have died from Covid. This gave me a sense of the scale of the drug crisis we are facing all over the world. I felt compelled to paint not just my story, but that of all the other’s struggling with the never ending cycle of addiction. ♦