Join the Search for Ribble Valley Heroes

Ellen Riley, 22, a former pupil of Stonyhurst College and Blackburn College, is to paint a series of portraits of local heroes that will hang in the museum's Your Clitheroe Room.

 

Ellen, who exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery aged 16 and a year later was the North-West winner of ITVs Brush with Fame, was diagnosed with a brain tumour last November, a week before she was due to open her first solo exhibition at the fashionable Swiss Village in Paris.

 

Ellen grew up in Hurst Green and left Ribble Valley five years ago to study art and literature in France, where she met her husband, Cedric Charleuf, who is also an artist.

 

She looked set for success on the Parisian art scene, but on November 6 last year, three days before her 22nd birthday and eight days before her first solo exhibition, was rushed into hospital for a seven-hour life-saving operation.

 

Now Ellen is on the hunt for Ribble Valley's community champions, whose portraits will hang at the Clitheroe Castle Museum in an exhibition called Heroes.

 

Ellen's portrait of disability activist Simon O'Rourke, 36, of Black Lane Croft, Clitheroe, who has been confined to a wheelchair following an industrial accident six years ago, has been completed.

 

And now she has started her second portrait featuring community champion Laura Bailey Quinton, 77, who is a campaigner for the relief of Third World debt, a volunteer for Oxfam, the Grand and St Paul's Playgroup in Clitheroe, and a fundraiser for the Friends of Chernobyl Children.

 

Ellen said: "When you are faced with huge events in your life, the everyday people who surround you can turn out to be heroes and, by painting their portraits, I would like to commemorate the actions of local people who do or have done heroic things."

 

If there is someone whose portrait you think deserves to hang at Clitheroe Castle, Ellen would like to hear from you. Whether it is a fire fighter, foster mum, favourite teacher or community champion, put your nomination in writing and send it to Heroes Exhibition, C/o Rachel Jackson, Keeper, Clitheroe Castle Museum, Castle Hill, Clitheroe, Lancashire, BB7 1BA.

 

Ends.

 

Ref: PR3310.

 

Date: June 23 2010.