ARTIST Tilly Willis, from Wiveliscombe, is heading to Malta this month to support the work of organisations dealing with the refugee crisis.

Tilly was disturbed by media reports last summer about refugees and migrants who crammed into boats in their desperation to reach Europe and drowned in their thousands.

She said: “I have family members from Senegal and Gambia. I personally know many African families who pressure their young sons and daughters to undertake the perilous journey across the desert, then the Mediterranean, in the desperate hope for a better life in Europe.”

In response she worked for several weeks on a picture she called ‘Strange Fish’, of people drowning. She said: “I wanted to portray ordinary people, men and women with smartphones, trainers and baseball caps, sinking to the bottom of the sea – an aesthetically appealing painting, until the full force the message is realised.”

Tilly, who is known for her paintings of Africa, said she hung the painting at her studio exhibition during Somerset Art Weeks and it provoked an emotional response from members of the public. “It was a departure from my usual subject matter, some people felt uncomfortable, most felt sad, but it triggered lively discussion,” she added.

Tilly decided that if she managed to sell the painting, the money would go to help save lives, and she found a charity based in Malta, Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), set up to rescue people crossing the Mediterranean fleeing war and poverty.

She contacted the charity with a photo of her painting and asked if it could find a use for the picture, either for fundraising or publicity. MOAS accepted her offer and suggested using it for publicity and subsequently selling it by auction.

Now Tilly is taking it Malta with her teenage daughter, where she hopes to meet some of the people who work for MOAS.

She is following in the footsteps of her late grandfather, the well-known cartoonist HM Bateman, who spent the last years of his life in the 1960s-70s painting on Malta and the neighbouring island of Gozo. “I’d often thought about visiting his grave and the places that he’d known and painted,” she added.

“I plan to make an audio diary of the trip – the team at MOAS inform me they are looking forward to welcoming us.”