Artist Jack Moyse grew up in an athletic household. His mother played hockey for Wales and when Jack and his siblings were not playing rugby and doing athletics they would be at the beach surfing the waves of the Gower. Now the 27-year-old, from Swansea, often finds it painful to photograph his friends surfing as it is a stark reminder of what his body was once capable of doing.
Despite being active as a teenager Jack started to notice he was not developing physically in the same way his peers were. At age 16 he looked different to those around him when he ran and sports became more difficult. "I didn't want to deal with it – I was like an ostrich with my head buried in the sand," said Jack, whose parents eventually made him see a doctor to find out what was going on with his body.
A year after he first went to the doctors he was diagnosed at 17 with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) – a genetic muscular disorder which causes weakness and loss of bulk in the muscles. The disease gets progressively worse over time and 10 years after first being diagnosed Jack can no longer do many of the activities he loved as a teenager and younger adult.
