A new art exhibition exploring a transgender woman’s ‘beautifully bleak and chaotic life’ will go on show from today.

Grace Oni Smith, an oil painter from West Cumbria, explores various parts of her life in her art, from working as an international showgirl, performance artist, sex worker, and model.

She’s been a resident artist at Florence Arts in Egremont for eight months and during this time created the collection of large-scale paintings for the exhibition.

Called ‘Im Chaos Der Spiegel’, which means ‘In the Chaos of Mirrors’ in German, it is the artist’s first solo show which charts a period of her life living in Berlin, which ultimately resulted in her suffering a mental breakdown, causing her to return to her teenage home of West Cumbria.

A spokesperson from Florence Arts said: “This body of work explores themes of horror, desperation, depravity, addiction, trauma, loss, and deep grief but it is also a story of love, rebuilding, growing and ultimately transcendence.

“Grace has been on a life-changing journey of recovery over the last three years and her art practice has been an essential tool in her journey of healing.

“This body of work acts as a gateway into the very best time of Grace’s life.

“It is her wish that people understand that these memory spaces are representations of places that have been manoeuvred, processed and learned from and through doing so they have become triumphant monuments of transcendence and resilience.”

The exhibition will be on show from today at 5pm (June 20) until July 20.