Portico Gallery is supported by an active and involved Steering Group the membership of which spans across a vast range of experience and expertise.

Florence Kroll qualified as a social worker in 1991 and since then has worked within youth services, probation and youth crime reduction services. She has worked for a number of London Boroughs as a probation officer and from 1999 to 2009 as a front line manager within Youth Offending Teams.

Florence is now an Assistant Director in a London Borough, responsible for the strategic direction of youth crime reduction, targeted youth support, youth work and substance misuse services for young people.

Florence is dedicated to working with the VCS and together with colleagues from the VCS has designed, commissioned and implemented a range of exciting, innovative and creative projects all of which are showing promising outcomes for young people in Hackney
Her most rewarding work remains actively engaging and listening to young people and enthusiastically promotes the ideas and leadership of young people. With an early background in Retail Design and the Arts she is delighted to be involved and to give support to Portico gallery.

Chrissy Thirlaway is an internationally renowned painter and art tutor. She has lived in England and Brazil and feels equally at home in both countries. Her career covers a wide range of disciplines including painting, printmaking, photography, murals, tattoo design, fabric design, graphic design and living art. Her silk screened prints have been distributed through Heals, Fortnum and Mason, Paperchase and Selfridges.

Chrissy has taught in schools and adult education and developed a pictorial minuting system for illiterate rural workers in the North East of Brazil. She currently runs a series of ‘Can’t Draw’ courses for all those who think they can’t draw – because she knows they can. During her career Chrissy has exhibited her work widely throughout London as well as in Brazil.

Michael Wilson was born in 1951 and educated at University College, Oxford and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. From 1975 to 2003 he worked at the National Gallery as Curator of French Paintings and as Head of Exhibitions. He played a leading role in the design and building of the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery was responsible for organising a series of major loan exhibitions in that wing including such artists as Rembrandt, Munch, Ingres, Vermeer and Titian. He co-ordinated the restoration of the historic main floor galleries and the re-display of the National Gallery Collection. He is the author of books on the National Gallery, the Impressionists, Odilon Redon and 18th Century French Painting. In 2004 he was awarded the CBE in recognition of his service to museums and galleries. Since leaving the National Gallery he has focused on his own painting.

Dr Richard Savage qualified from St Thomas’ Hospital in 1970 and entered the Stockwell Group Practice in 1974 where he has worked as a NHS GP for 36 years. He has been a GP trainer and Programme Director of the Guys and St Thomas’ VTS from 1991 to 2008. His MSc in General Practice added research skills and he has published papers in the BMJ and BJGP. He lives in West Dulwich with his wife and they are keen allotment gardeners, theatre and filmgoers. They are also members of the Tate Modern Museum.