The Turning Point

Meet Evangeline Hart — the woman at the centre of The Turning Point.

What begins with a long-buried dream of becoming an artist, and an unexpected opportunity to show a painting in Paris, becomes Evangeline’s turning point.

It takes her from a life entrenched in routine — a marriage in which she has long been taken for granted, a corporate career she does well but does not love, and years spent putting everyone else first — into a world of remarkable rooms, beautiful places, unexpected relationships, romance and the lives of extraordinary people.

Almost by accident, Evangeline finds herself becoming a portrait painter.

The sitters who enter her world are anything but ordinary. Each brings a story of their own — of beauty, ambition, love, loss, courage, reinvention and the choices that shape a life.

Among her first sitters is Margaux Vasiliev, one of the most celebrated ballerinas of the twentieth century, whose portrait takes Evangeline into the glittering Paris of 1975 and a love story that has waited decades to be told.

Set in London, as Evangeline begins turning towards the dream she once learned to dismiss as unrealistic, her own life starts to expand beyond anything she had imagined possible.

And with every portrait, every encounter and every choice she makes in her own direction, another part of the world begins to open.

How the Story Connects to the Paintings

The paintings are not literal illustrations of Evangeline’s story.

They are emotional counterparts to it.

Some grow directly from moments in The Turning Point. Others hold the atmosphere, symbols and emotional undercurrents of the world around her.

Flowers, birds, hidden keys, perfume bottles, colour, gesture and beautiful objects carry meaning throughout both the paintings and the written story — reflecting longing, courage, memory, self-possession and the becoming of who you truly are..

The story deepens the paintings.
The paintings give the story a world to live in.