liz atkin
Liz Atkin is an artist and educator. She reimagines her Compulsive Skin Picking and anxiety into drawings, photographs and performances.
Liz is a mental health advocate and raises awareness for the disorder around the world. She has exhibited and taught in the UK, Europe, Australia, USA, Singapore and Japan. Her work is permanently held in the Wellcome Collection, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, Derby Museum, and Bethlem Gallery Collection supported by the Peter Sowerby Foundation and National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, she gave away more than 18,000 free #CompulsiveCharcoal newspaper drawings to commuters on public transport in London, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Cologne and more.
Liz teaches art in schools, hospitals, hospices, prisons, arts venues and universities. She is an ambassador for The Big Draw, the world’s largest drawing festival, focusing on the role of creativity for health and wellbeing.
Liz received the Unstoppable Spirit Award for Outspoken Advocacy at the TLC Global Conference for Skin Picking and Hair Pulling Disorders in San Francisco in 2018, and was a finalist in the Janey Antoniou Award with Rethink Mental Illness in 2018. Her work has featured on TEDx, BBC News, Woman’s Hour, Vice, Women’s Health USA, Huffington Post, Channel News Asia, Metro, AlJazeera and more. To find out more about Liz visit her website here.
We are delighted to have Liz as part of our Contemporary Kent Artists exhibition at The Horsebridge Arts Gallery on the 8th - 20th of October 2025.
Since relocating to Whitstable in 2021, Liz has found herself enchanted by the coastline—immersing herself in sea swimming, beach walks, and capturing the intricate tidal textures through her art. Her series, "Whitstable in Charcoal," reflects her deep fascination with the sea. This instinctive attraction to texture is intricately linked to her lifelong struggle with Compulsive Skin Picking. Liz describes this experience as a "constant energy," noting the rhythm it creates within her body. Through her charcoal drawings, she channels this energy, using the patterns, speed, and control of her hands and fingertips to create on the page. For Liz, charcoal offers a texturally therapeutic escape, providing a calming counterbalance to the tactile nature of skin picking. Her profound connection to the sea intertwines with her grief—another enduring love that shapes her journey.