In his four decades as a curator, publisher and gallerist, Matthew Higgs has supported many artists’ careers, including those of his contemporaries Jeremy Deller, Martin Creed and Peter Doig when they emerged in the early 1990s.
Higgs also champions artists from alternative backgrounds – those who are self-taught, say, or have developmental or cognitive impairment – and his latest discovery is one such person. Christine Hazell is 88, has progressive memory loss, and had never made art until six months ago. She has since created more than 200 drawings, which have rapidly gone viral on Instagram, inspired a following, and will feature in four scheduled exhibitions. She is also Higgs’s mother.
It’s the best example of outsider art I’ve seen in Yorkshire – made with real purity and no commercial motivation
What began in May was an idea of Higgs’s sister Gaby, an architect based between London and York, where Hazell lives in a 17th-century terraced cottage. Discovering coloured pencils and drawing pads left behind by her now adult children, Gaby suggested her mum try to copy some family photos, to occupy her days. Hazell’s first drawings captured the faces of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and family dog, Kizzy. Since then she has produced new drawings every day. “Mum can spend 10 minutes or two hours on each portrait,” Gaby says. Taken by Hazell’s absorption in this activity, she began sending them in phone messages to her brother.
‘She says it’s her job to “spoil” perfection’ … Hazell’s portrait of her daughter, Gaby Higgs. Photograph: Christine Hazell
Since 2004, Yorkshire-born Higgs has lived with his wife, the American artist Anne Collier, in New York, where he is director and chief curator of White Columns, the city’s oldest alternative art space. He was intrigued to discover that drawing had ignited something in his mother.
“It struck me that these were significant drawings by an elderly person who had never drawn before. I’d be fascinated by anyone who began making art in their 80s,” he says of his decision to share them on social media, as we sit at the kitchen table where Hazell creates her drawings. The fact that the artist is his mother – who no longer recognises her family members but is engrossed by the process of drawing their images – makes it all the more meaningful to him.
Because of Hazell’s condition, what happens during that process is unknowable, but Higgs observes a certain progression. “She has quickly acquired a distinctive style and an independent view of the world by translating photos into drawings.” When making her portraits, she chooses what to leave out and what to amplify. “I made a video this week of mum drawing my nephews and niece when they were little,” says Higgs, “and she mentions how perfect they look in the photo. She says it’s her job to ‘spoil’ that perfection, which she does by disrupting it in her drawing. She also described her drawing of a cat that looked ‘like a nightmare’. It’s about giving her subjects a different face.”
‘Never too late’ … Christine Hazell at work. Photograph: Gaby Higgs
For him, it vindicates the idea that we are all inherently creative: “Allow someone the time, encouragement and resources to be creative and it will most likely happen.”
There has been a surge of interest among Higgs’ 65.3k Instagram followers, who react with wonder to his weekly posts of new drawings. Attracting praise from Tracey Emin (“Something so good going on here, and shows it’s never too late”), Pulitzer prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz and Tate Britain’s director Alex Farquharson, the drawings have inspired collaborations with UK gallerists.
Florencia Clifford and her partner Hugo Hildyard, who own and run Partisan, a York restaurant and exhibition space for emerging art, will show Hazell’s first selection, depicting 24 subjects from across Yorkshire, under the title Different Faces. “I was amazed when I saw those early posts,” Clifford says. “I knew immediately I’d like to exhibit the drawings if I could. Christine’s art is magical and moving – a freedom of expression without self-consciousness.”
‘It only gets more interesting’ … a portrait of curator, publisher and gallerist Matthew Higgs, by his mother Christine Hazell. Photograph: Christine Hazell
Next July, London’s Studio Voltaire will show another group of drawings. “There’s such care and consideration in the line-making and the forms,” says its director Joe Scotland. “The fact that Christine has begun making art at 88 sits within our interests – creativity can come out at any age and we’ve been very influenced by White Columns in terms of broadening our platform of support.”
At the Blacksmith’s Shop, East Yorkshire’s outsider art gallery, owner-curator Mark Ibson will include Hazell’s art in his August 2026 summer show. “It absolutely meets our criteria,” he says. “It’s the best example of outsider art I’ve seen in Yorkshire, made with real purity and no commercial motivation.” After that, Hazell’s drawings – whose latest subjects include musicians and actors – will cross the Atlantic to hang in White Columns.
“It only gets more interesting,” Higgs says. “Mum is becoming more confident, more certain of the way she edits a photo into a drawing. It’s amazing that someone’s ability to visualise things can accelerate so quickly, when in other aspects of their life things are slowing down.”
Christine Hazell: Different Faces will show at Partisan, York, from 17 December to 1 March
