An artist, author and human rights activist opened her exhibit at the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine last week.

Fiona Macintosh, who has her studio on Irvine’s Harbourside, opened the exhibition on Wednesday, May 10, The exhibition showcases striking black and white images printed on fabric and paper that Fiona created to illustrate her best-selling book Rosa of the Wild Grass.

The book, published last year, tells the true story of Rosa and her poor but community spirited Nicaraguan family who welcomed Fiona into their home when she worked in the Central American republic during the Sandinista revolution in the 1980s, and then the war with the US-backed Contras during the height of the Cold War.

Fiona told the Irvine Times: “All the artwork connects up with this long political story, this third world central American country having a very hard time of it.

While studying art at university down in England, Fiona got involved with various Latin American Solidarity movements.

“I went over because I had been doing all this publicity work for the Chile Solidarity Movement, the Argentinian Solidarity Movement all these organisations in London.

“The Chilean coup happened in 1973 and somehow that just got me. There was one military coup after another and then this revolution that happened in Nicaragua and I just felt there was a little bit of light in a dark horizon in Central America.

“That was 1981 when I arrived, but I subsequently just stayed on and helped produce other educational materials, but also a lot charities got me to do coverage of the contra war that started in 1983.

“It was already dangerous in lots of the areas and I was taking photographs all over the country, so I stayed on and stayed on until 88 and then came back in 1990 and 94 and just kept going back seven times overall.

“During that time I kept recording Rosa from the book, but everything in the book is based on her words edited down so you get the real essence of what they’ve been through in these 28 years.

“I just felt I had this really close relationship and this woman, who was not unique by any means, but she had this phenomenal intelligence and because of the revolution had a real fighting spirit.

After releasing Rosa of the Wild Grass, Fiona says she was persuaded by friends that her art work had to be used in an exhibition and not confined to pages in a book.

“All the people from the art world who are more visual were saying ‘for god’s sake make an exhibition out of this’.

“Brian Craig who works in the studios he was one who said you’ve got to do it and he’s been very very supportive, so that was lovely, they’re such a great bunch of people. I’ve been there a year, again thanks to Brian, there was a bit of a wait but I love it, it’s so great down there. Everyone is really different as well but they’re all dead helpful.”

The exhibition also features an art work created for the show by pupils from St. Matthews’s Academy who worked with Fiona on the subject of “what does community mean”.

Fiona will also be hosting a workshop, reading and Latino picnic at the Harbour Arts Centre on Sunday, May 28.