“The theme of barriers has always been with me. Whether they’re physical, spiritual or mental, they have always been a part of my work.”
Artist Michelle Baharier is sitting in the crypt of St Marylebone Parish Church surrounded by paintings from her current exhibition, Filling in the Gaps.
The name of the show – a collection of ten powerful portraits commissioned by the London Transport Museum – is derived from its subjects, all people with disabilities who have campaigned for better access to public transport.
The paintings are vibrant, a little bit quirky, with each sitter holding the viewer in their gaze – much like the artist who painted them, with her brilliant pink hair, blue-rimmed glasses and perfectly coordinated outfit.
Baharier, 62, is fun and funny – but these paintings, which she started during Covid, have a serious message.
Prior to the pandemic, while running an arts and mental health charity, Cool Tan Arts (so named because she and the other artists involved “squatted” in a disused Cool Tan sun lotion factory), she put together an anthology.
One of the poets was a man called David Morris, a prominent activist and disability advisor to previous London mayors, who wrote Routemaster Race, about how he, as a wheelchair user, couldn’t get on a bus.
Baharier went on to paint David, who passed away in 2010, as well as her great aunt – Esther Annenberg – a “really feisty” woman, who sounds like she was way ahead of her time. Born with a twisted kneecap, becoming wheelchair-bound after doctors took out her hip-sockets, she campaigned in the 1980s for Dial-a-Ride, a TfL service for people with disabilities.
[Missing Credit]Michelle Baharier with her portraits of disability activists David Morris and Sharon Simmons (Photo: Gaby Wine)
“I know from my great aunt, that when the buses were [the original] Routemasters, the conductor would pull her onto the bus. Then when they brought in driver-only buses, she couldn’t use them anymore, and it made me think, during the pandemic, that we’re all in a really similar position, being excluded and having an understanding of that.”
Baharier, who lives in Camberwell, south-east London, tells a story – which sounds more like a scene out of satirical comedy – of another of her subjects, Sue Elsegood. Sue was taken to court for padlocking herself to a bus. “But the police couldn’t take her in their van because their van wasn’t disabled accessible, so they had to use Sue’s disabled car. Then, when she got to the police station, she couldn’t get into the building because that wasn’t accessible. And then they couldn’t get into the court room because the court room wasn’t accessible. But, as Sue points out, we can put astronauts on the moon, but why can’t we put a wheelchair user on the bus?”
Baharier herself is not just an observer of those who are marginalised but has a number of what she calls her own “hidden disabilities” – including dyslexia, some mental health challenges and a lung condition, which means she uses acrylics instead of oil paints.
Michelle Baharier's painting of her great aunt, Esther Annenberg (Photo: Gaby Wine)[Missing Credit]
While always a talented artist, her inability to read and write as a child made school life difficult. “My dyslexia wasn’t recognised. One of my teachers…couldn’t work out why I could draw really well but not read or write.”
While she got some support at her primary school in St Albans, her secondary school refused to allow a specialist teacher to come in, and for some time, Baharier was left to her own devices. “I didn’t go into school for my last two years. I just bunked off – also because my dad was dying of brain cancer. Instead, I did rather like visiting the Mark Rothko Room at the Tate. I would get an 84 to Barnet and another couple of buses.”
She says she was “really lucky” to have got into college with few qualifications, and later into the Slade School of Fine Art, as well as having stints at art schools in Frankfurt and Arezzo.
Baharier describes her style as “expressionist and a bit surrealist”, and there are echoes of Hockney, Kahlo and Bacon in her work.
Michelle Baharier in front of her portrait of Baroness Jane Campbell of Surbiton, former commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (Photo: Gaby Wine)[Missing Credit]
But two paintings which have none of her characteristic vitality are the portraits she did of released Israeli hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, after seeing images of them in captivity. “I felt really compelled to paint them because I felt so helpless.”
Involved in grassroots campaigning since October 7, she has been on plenty of marches and has stood at numerous vigils. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to synagogue as much since I was a kid.”
But her activism for the hostages also led to Baharier being ostracised by fellow artists for being what she calls “the wrong radical”.
She recounts how she bumped into a colleague on a bus, who told her she had just been writing poems for Palestinians. “When I said to her: ‘What about the hostages?’ she said: ‘What hostages?’ I said: ‘The Israeli hostages from October 7.’ And she got up and said: ‘I don’t sit next to Zionists.’”
On another occasion, a fellow artist “sent me a whole diatribe about the blood libel, saying I murder children, that I’m a ‘Zionist pig’… All these people feel they’re doing something for humanity, but they don’t have humanity for Jewish people. It makes it very dangerous for you to say anything because you’re an isolated voice.”
Since October 7, she has also sometimes struggled to find galleries that will exhibit her work. “They don’t say, ‘no’ to your face, but your emails go missing, or they won’t reply.”
Despite this, Baharier’s passion for the power of artwork to effect change – whether in the viewer or in society as a whole – hasn’t dimmed.
But this won’t be primarily through social media as at one point, she even considered closing her accounts after receiving so much abuse. As for the endless stream of photos people post, Baharier says: “They are there and then they’re gone…You can’t get the artist’s emotion in a photo.”
And for Baharier, her artwork is infused with her emotions – as a Jew, as someone with hidden disabilities and as someone who uses art as a weapon to advocate for others.
As we wrap up, she says she is fearful for the Jewish community. “I went to look at Gail’s in Archway…How did [anti-Israel activists] get the glass into that state? I’m thinking of making a bit of work out of it because it’s just getting so ridiculous.”
Filling in the Gaps is at St Marylebone Parish Church until March 23. It will then be exhibited elsewhere. For details, go to: michellebaharier.co.uk or click here
To get more from community, click here to sign up for our free community newsletter.