Meet Forensic Mortuary Technician, Abby-Lee Honeysett, a proud Wiradjuri woman who has taken to painting more frequently to disconnect from the demanding nature of her work, and the trauma associated with her role in Forensic Medicine. Her art is a symbol of strength and resilience for families affected by homicide.

Abby-Lee is cur­rent­ly in her sec­ond year work­ing as a Foren­sic Mor­tu­ary Tech­ni­cian at NSW Health Pathology’s Foren­sic Med­i­cine ser­vice in Lidcombe.

She says her deci­sion to change careers was heav­i­ly influ­enced by sto­ries she had heard of the coro­nial sys­tem grow­ing up and wit­ness­ing the heart­break and anguish of her own fam­i­ly and friends los­ing a loved one to homicide.

“I came to a cross­roads in my teach­ing career, and I need­ed a change,” she explains.

“Hav­ing wit­nessed the uncon­di­tion­al love and sup­port by Martha Jabour OAM and Homi­cide Vic­tims Sup­port Group pro­vid­ed to my fam­i­ly over the years, I knew I want­ed to help advo­cate for fam­i­lies with loved ones going through the coro­nial sys­tem. I want­ed to find my own way to give back,” she said.

While work­ing as a school­teacher, Abby-Lee began study­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Syd­ney, study­ing a Bach­e­lor of Med­ical Sci­ence (Foren­sic Mor­tu­ary Prac­tice). Soon after grad­u­at­ing, she was offered a job as a foren­sic mor­tu­ary tech­ni­cian at Foren­sic Med­i­cine Sydney.

When Abby-Lee is on the mor­tu­ary floor, she helps with all facets of the inter­nal and exter­nal autop­sy process for a range of cas­es, includ­ing trau­mat­ic, high­ly infec­tious, bariatric, and pae­di­atric cas­es. How­ev­er, her role is cur­rent­ly pri­mar­i­ly admin­is­tra­tive, work­ing in the admis­sions and release office.

She enjoys her work as a tech­ni­cian at Foren­sic Med­i­cine, but because of the ever chang­ing demands and the expo­sure to trau­ma says she finds her­self paint­ing more fre­quent­ly in her down­time, as a means of ground­ing her­self through cul­tur­al con­nec­tions and dis­con­nect­ing from work.

Telling stories through art

Grow­ing up in Gul­go­ng in the NSW Cen­tral Table­lands, Abby-Lee didn’t have many oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn the art of sto­ry­telling from Elders in her com­mu­ni­ty or con­nect with her cul­ture until much lat­er in life.

It’s some­thing she’s still learn­ing more about.

“I had been trav­el­ling to Alice Springs for many years for sport­ing events, but it wasn’t until I vis­it­ed in my late twen­ties that I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with an Abo­rig­i­nal Elder who taught me the mean­ing of cer­tain sym­bols, sacred sto­ries, and the art of sto­ry­telling. It was the first time I had direct con­tact with an Abo­rig­i­nal Elder, and she cer­tain­ly made an impres­sion on me,” she said.

Abby-Lee describes her­self as a con­tem­po­rary artist, and says she is still learn­ing her process and style with each painting.

“The out­come for every paint­ing is dif­fer­ent, I usu­al­ly make a sketch of what I want the final piece to look like, but some­times I get lost in time while paint­ing and often the fin­ished prod­uct can look com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent to what I imagined.”

Using art to support the community

One of Abby-Lee’s art­works now has pride of place in the foy­er of Grace’s Place (top image), a world first res­i­den­tial trau­ma cen­tre for chil­dren and their fam­i­lies affect­ed by homi­cide in Sydney.

“I cre­at­ed the ‘Heal­ing Togeth­er’ art­work to reflect the sup­port and heal­ing with­in the Homi­cide Vic­tims Sup­port Group (HVSG) community.

“The cir­cu­lar design rep­re­sents the idea that heal­ing and griev­ing are not lin­ear process­es, with the wind­ing path­ways con­nect­ing fam­i­lies of the HVSG com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er while they are being led by their loved ones to the cen­tral meet­ing place” Abby-Lee explains.

Abby-Lee con­tributed this piece to an auc­tion being held to raise funds for the HVSG and Grace’s Place. The estab­lish­ment of the HVSG began in 1993 after a meet­ing in the coun­selling sec­tion of Foren­sic Med­i­cine in Glebe.

The HVSG cur­rent­ly offers a vari­ety of coun­selling ser­vices, events, ther­a­pies, and edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams to over 4000 fam­i­ly mem­bers affect­ed by homicide.

“I am so grate­ful it was pur­chased and then donat­ed to Grace’s Place, it is a very per­son­al paint­ing, and it holds a spe­cial place in the hearts of peo­ple close to me,” Abby-Lee says.

“As you walk into Grace’s Place the paint­ing is a beau­ti­ful sym­bol of the strength and resilience of each fam­i­ly mem­ber and a con­stant reminder that their loved ones are cel­e­brat­ed, hon­oured, and nev­er forgotten.”

Abby-Lee also recent­ly cre­at­ed an art­work titled ‘Bir­rang’ (Jour­ney) which reflects the path­ways, rela­tion­ships, and knowl­edge a foren­sic pathol­o­gist gath­ers and shares along their journey.

(top image: CEO of the Homi­cide Vic­tims Sup­port Group Martha Jabour OAM and NSWHP Foren­sic Mor­tu­ary Tech­ni­cian Abby-Lee Hon­ey­sett at Grace’s Place, with her art­work, Healing.)

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