FAT will probably always be a feminist issue, but Sarah Jane Szikora's world of women sporting acres of flesh is aimed at turning it around.

She is doing her bit to get rid of the negative relationship women have with their bodies, due in no small measure to the perfect airbrushed models they try to live up to.

Her latest collection of paintings, Fat & Fab!, opened at the weekend at the Halcyon Gallery in the International Convention Centre, Birmingham. The works celebrate cellulite and praise plumpness - and recognise temptation in the form of cream cakes and mouth-watering chocolates.

Slim and trim herself, she told the D&S Times: "Originally the figures were really enormous. I started to pare them down over the years, but I still do that sort of proportion. Women and weight is such an issue.

"I sometimes do fat men as well, and I do as many skinny figures as fat, but for some reason it has always been the fat ones that draw the attention.

"People are surprised when I say I model for my own pictures. But I still like to get the fundamental shape right.

"I have a big mirror to look at myself so I get them anatomically correct - and then I put the flesh on."

Tiny heads on vast bodies is also a trademark of her pictures, giving the impression of a slip of a girl trapped inside.

Her father fled Hungary after the 1956 uprising and was sent to work on the railways in Darlington. It was on visits back to his native country that his daughter first encountered the larger than life women she portrays in her pictures.

"He also made his own distinctive furniture, and I think I inherited a creative streak from him."

She drew constantly as a child, but she hated school. Her surname singled her out and she was bullied.

"I was just different. I might have done better if I had had a happier time."

She went on to Harrogate College to study art and design and from there to Cleveland College of Art to study illustration. On leaving college in 1991, she and a friend went into business making papier-mach models sold from a shop in York. It was a struggle making ends meet and eventually she displayed some of her paintings and they were snapped up.

"From then on it was just work, work, work as I put a portfolio together. I lived in Richmond for some time so I knew of the artist Mackenzie Thorpe and went to him for advice.

"He showed my work to his agent, which led to a contract with the Halcyon gallery. That was about five years ago."

She is now 30 years old and a prolific artist. "If I don't work, I don't get paid. I produce about 40-50 originals in a good year.

"Artists are not paid too well in comparison with the asking price for their work."

Her dream is to have a gallery in the North-East for artists struggling for recognition, but at the moment she is too busy.

"There are so many artists not getting a fair go, not being recognised. I would like to do something for those people."

She adds "At the moment I want to do my own work, while I can still see. My eyesight is very bad. I had a squint as a child and had an operation which seems to have made that eye worse.

"My glasses are very strong now, but I have to use a magnifying glass when I do faces. In the long term, I think it will become difficult to continue."

Her partner, Ian Wright, has been her support over the years and helped her publish her work as greeting cards. He is very tall and slim, and also comes in handy when she needs a model.

She says she has drawn more inspiration from good films and books than from other artists and is scathing about the Turner art prize.

"I don't see how it relates to normal people. What can they do with an unmade bed. I don't think that is art - perhaps they should give it a different name.

"I suppose if you are clever and can talk about it, there is always someone willing to listen and it gets a strong response from people, even if it is just anger."

Apart from the fact she paints on canvas, she sees her own work as being contemporary and admits: "People do tend to either love it or hate it."

She has a stack of ideas and a fixation with angels and devils. "I have a very vivid and over-active imagination. Unfortunately, the same thing that drives me when I am working also gives me really horrible nightmares.

"People look at my work and think I must be a very cheerful type of person. I can't really say that I am. Perhaps painting like this is what I would really like to be. I am quite solitary and I do struggle with black clouds myself.

"I can't walk down the street and not see things I would like to turn into a painting. Just someone sweeping the road I would make up into something bizarre."

She can be quite hard on herself looking back at her early work.

"When I first started I was quite a sloppy painter and the work is much tighter now. My early work seems really scruffy in comparison."

What lies in the future? "I have a head full of ideas, so I will keep working. I know the gallery would like me to start work on some proper sculptures, perhaps bronze. And I would like to have a go at that for a time."

The exhibition runs until the end of March, and there are examples of her work in art outlets in Darlington and major city stores.