‘Beautiful’ Calderdale Royal doctor is face of NHS frontline fight against Covid-19

Dr Anneka Biswas-Abrol, who lives in Queensbury, has been immortalised through art after being on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus after the pandemic hit the UK in March.

The project has been spearheaded by Rosalind Freeborn, an artist from London, who created a paper collage portrait of mum-of-one Dr Biswas, which is now being used during the introduction to ITV’s This Morning.

Ms Freeborn said: “I’m a paper collage artist and specialise in portraits.

“I put the announcement on my Instagram account and her husband Rohit Abrol responded.

“He asked me to make a portrait of his wife, Anneka Biswas who is a doctor.

“She’s a consultant specialising in respiratory medicine across Calderdale and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

“She’s been on the frontline since the Covid-19 outbreak dealing with patients from all over West Yorkshire and it’s been a very harrowing time for her.”

Using torn magazine pages and a variety of textures, the portrait shows Dr Biswas-Abrol in her scrubs and a face shield, which was created with a mix of blue and clear cellophane.

“She’s beautiful but all you see in her work environment is her lovely eyes peeping out of all that PPE,” said Ms Freeborn.

“I wanted this piece to be an historical document, so I selected headlines and articles from many of the newspapers I’ve been reading over the past few weeks and decided to surround her with coverage of the pandemic.

“It was helpful many newspapers had printed quite reflective pieces about the outbreak, charting its beginnings at the end of 2019 through the process of lockdown and the ghastly impact of people who have become ill and died.”

Dr Biswas-Abrol said: “I absolutely love it and couldn’t believe it when Rohit showed me.

“It’s amazing because I’d been saying I really should keep a scrapbook of newspaper articles and now I don’t need to.”

Ms Freeborn said she was inspired to take up the project after BBC’s arts editor Will Gompertz asked artists to create portraits of NHS key workers, initiated by portrait artist Tom Croft with hashtag #portraitsfornhsheroes