Cambridge woman wins Parkinson's Disease Society award for art

Isobel Prescott, from Cambridge, has won this year's Mervyn Peake Award for Art. Isobel won with her painting Up and Away and her award was presented by Richard Briers and Fabian Peake at an awards ceremony at Westminster Central Hall in London on 3 July [2009].

Launched by the Parkinson's Disease Society (PDS) and the Peake family 7 years ago, the awards celebrate the creative achievements of people with Parkinson's in art, poetry and photography. The awards are held in memory of the late illustrator, writer and poet Mervyn Peake (1911–1968), whose works included Gormenghast and the Alice in Wonderland illustrations, and who developed Parkinson's in later life.

This is the first year Isobel has entered the awards. Isobel, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2005 said: ‘I chanced to see the competition advertised in The Parkinson magazine and as I had a painting underway based on sketches made of Event Horizon (Anthony Gormley's London rooftop exhibition) I decided to enter considering it apposite – the straight and stiff human figures representing the stiffness of Parkinson's disease; the “up and away” being a fanciful flight from that lack of fluent mobility. Only later did I realise that this splendid prize founded by the Peake family, which I was delighted (of course) to receive, rightly embraces any subject thus encouraging sufferers to think and do beyond the brain malfunction of Parkinson's.’

Isobel was posthumously diagnosed with multiple system atrophy. Lucy Alexander is her daughter.