Frieda Hughes’s poems and paintings reflect her early years in Devon and Yorkshire, and her later experiences when living in London, Australia, and most recently, Wales. From childhood, writing and painting have been the two driving forces behind her commitment to life. They first came together in her illustration of two of her seven published children’s books, and through her cartoons – she was cartoonist for the West Australian Magazine when living in Western Australia in the early 90s. In 2002 Frieda Hughes received a NESTA Award to undertake her work on Forty-five, a summary of her life to that age in 45 poems and a 225 foot long, 4 foot high, 45 panel abstract depicting the emotional landscape of her life. This was the beginning of a growing collaboration between her poetry and her artwork, which is now further realised in Alternative Values, which includes 60 full-colour plates of both her abstract and her semi-figurative work. The paintings were shown at the Belgravia Gallery, London, where the book was launched in October 2015.

‘What do we mean to each other and how are we valued? It’s all about perspective; many of these poems explore relationships, attitudes, and how we look back at our childhoods with the eyes of adults, so often having lost that sense of what it was actually like to be a child, when we stumbled into our future with fear, hope or trepidation. Here, I subject my own history and childhood to examination in respect of the way I see others, and myself.’ – Frieda Hughes on Alternative Values