WATERCOLOUR artist Inga Bystram has become well known to RMT members on picket lines at Seven Sisters depot in Tottenham this year, as well as at Euston, Kings Cross, and further afield. Her colour-coordinated outfits fit right in alongside striking RMT members’ colourful hi-vis, flags and banners.

Bystram sketches and paints striking rail workers (RMT, Aslef and TSSA) as well as CWU postal workers, UCU university lecturers and even striking barristers outside the Old Bailey.

She lives on Tottenham’s Broadwater Farm Estate and describes herself as a “relative newcomer,” having moved there in 2005 when she married her late husband, Terry Burton, long-serving secretary of Haringey Trades Union Council (1986-2008).

Bystram has been drawing since her schooldays and learnt to draw at sixth form college at Broxbourne School in Hertfordshire — she then went on to study art at London’s Royal Academy.
 
This summer, she decided to paint striking RMT members, attracted by the colour and vibrancy of the picket lines as well as the friendliness of the pickets.

“I went down to Euston Station where I got introduced to lovely ‘Uncle Paul’ who took me under his wing. My sister Yolanda who was active on picket lines in the 1970s and ’80s said to me ‘Don’t be nervous, Inga. It might be their first picket line too!’” she said of her first visit to a picket line.

Much positive energy emanates from these lively, impromptu watercolour sketches that reflect the positive comradeship that has characterised these pickets throughout.

Bystram has become something of a picket line celebrity and will be exhibiting her watercolour sketches at various trade union offices in 2023. An exhibition at Somerstown’s Cock Tavern in Chalton Street, London NW1 has tentatively been mentioned.

“It means more to me than a show at the Tate,” she commented on exhibiting her work to trade unionists.