Children’s art shows trauma of losing loved ones

EMMA-JAYNE does not remember her father. She was just three years of age when he was shot dead.

She can't remember what he looked like, but remembers him being tall. The strongest memory she has of her father, Robert, who was a plumber, is his toolbox.

"I was young but I remember his toolbox my brother still has it and that's how I know what it looks like."

Emma-Jayne's picture is one of 14 powerful paintings on display at the Bridge Visitor Centre at Wicklow's Glencree Centre for Reconciliation that capture the pain of a generation of children who lost parents and loved ones through violence in the North.

'Every Picture Tells a Story' was compiled over three years at the WAVE Trauma Centre in Belfast. The exhibits on display are from more than 70 people aged between five and 25 who attended the centre during that time.

WAVE says children sometimes don't have the words to describe how they feel and use art to express themselves.

Philip Boxberger, who runs the exhibition section at the Bridge Visitor Centre at Glencree, says he doesn't really have a favourite picture from the exhibition, but says Zoe's painting has touched him. "It is a beautiful painting. So simple.

"But they are all moving and they message they give is very salutary," he said.

A comment book from the WAVE Trauma Centre is in the exhibition hall so people can leave their thoughts about how the paintings have affected them.

"This is a very important aspect of the exhibition and many people write that they had no idea about this whole other aspect to the violence in the North. We hear the statistics or the newsflash of a shooting or a bombing, but we don't think about the people who are left behind, particularly the children. This is what the exhibition is about. It recognises the impact on children," Mr Boxberger said.

Another victim, Leah, was seven when her aunt and her father were blown up in the Shankill bomb, which ripped through Frizzell's fish shop on October 23, 1993, killing nine people. Her art formed part of a jigsaw where 15 other children also affected by the bombing reflected, often for the first time, about the impact it had on their lives. They were encouraged to draw one happy memory of their loved ones, and on the reverse of the jigsaw, an unhappy one. Leah's part of the jigsaw contains an ambulance and tear drops. Chillingly, Leah believes many more little children will suffer similar losses.

"I don't think Northern Ireland will ever change, this kind of thing could happen again because of the way people are brought up. People force their view on their kids it's always going to be the same," Leah said.

Exhibitions like this might help to prove her wrong.

Entry to the exhibition is free and it runs until March 26. All of the paintings have been compiled in a booklet which can be bought for €10. All proceeds go to the WAVE Trauma Centre.