IF visual art is your passion your creative journey can meander in different directions at different life stages, but the core pulse of creativity often demands to push through no matter your life circumstances or life changes. In fact, it can often be the actual life saviour to whatever situation you find yourself in.

Heather Dornan Wilson has been a key artist in many groups in the city. Her work has moved from ceramics and small sculptures she used to call her 'pieces' to larger installations and musings on space and faith, often using sound.

Finding herself faced with the challenging triple whammy of her father's death, her mum having a stroke soon after and an unidentified crippling illness, Heather found herself literally unable to move. In this instance, how do you keep creating? The answer is that artists always find a way. If you are lucky enough to have had your parents stay together and love each other right to the end of one of their lives the passing of one can be heartbreaking. A poem recorded about this final farewell fills the gallery. It is obvious . as she muses on this final parting that she has been nurtured in a loving parental relationship.

There are two large machine-embroidered portraits of her mother and father, focusing on their smiles. With no hand mobility, the process of creating them was difficult for Heather, but it brought back her ability to create, processing grief in the process. Anyone who has held the hand of a dying family member can relate to the photographic images along one wall.

Another wall features an embroidered poem by Albert Camus, asking us if we have found the light in faces in the depth of winter – something that we all need at this time of the year. The artist will be in situ for the duration of the exhibition, with new work emerging weekly. Her mother has recovered well and attended the opening. Who's ever ready to lose their mother's smile?

Connection: Disconnection continues at RSpace Gallery, Lisburn, until February 9.

Meanwhile, we have another great exhibition to look forward to at the Ulster Museum: Lavery on Location. The Sir John Lavery exhibition has been on show at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, and its next stop is Belfast at the end of February before heading over to Scotland. The Ulster Museum holds a collection of his work permanently but the general public might be more familar with his famous triptych in Saint Patrick's church, in which he used his wife as a model for the Virgin Mary.

IRONIC: The American Hazel Lavery was the model for Sir John Lavery's depiction of Kathleen Ní Houlihan on Irish banknotes
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IRONIC: The American Hazel Lavery was the model for Sir John Lavery's depiction of Kathleen Ní Houlihan on Irish banknotes

Lavery's wife Hazel featured on Irish Free State banknotes after Lavery was commissioned by the  new government to depict in a portrait the female personification of Ireland, Kathleen Ní Houlihan –  ironic considering Lady Lavery was American (a sixth-generation Irish American). The Laverys' house in London was used by Michael Collins during the negotiations for the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 and Lavery had been commissioned to paint the trial of Rodger Casement. It's always interesting to consider what is going on politically when art is being produced.

Lavery on Location opens at the Ulster Museum on February 23.