Chiaroscuro is an art gallery platform founded on a simple truth: transformation happens when understanding replaces judgement.
The name comes from the classical art technique — the interplay of light and shadow — a powerful metaphor for addiction and recovery, darkness and renewal, struggle and emergence.
Through carefully curated art sales and exhibitions, Chiaroscuro supports The Dynamo Project, a peer-led recovery organisation built on lived experience, trust, and dignity.
Understanding Changes Everything. Addiction is not a lack of willpower. It is not a moral failing. And it is never just about the substance.
The Connection to Dynamo
Funds generated through Chiaroscuro support the wider ecosystem that makes recovery sustainable — including therapy, counselling, creative practice, physical training, relapse prevention, and personal development.
These are the elements that fall outside statutory funding, yet determine whether recovery holds.
Led by Kieran O'Toole, the son of Chiaroscuro founder Brendan O'Toole, a former police officer whose own recovery reshaped his life, and supported by a close-knit team, many of whom are in recovery themselves, Dynamo works with insight that cannot be taught.
Read more about DynamoThey recognise the patterns.
They see the defences.
They understand the behaviour — because they once stood there too.
A Different Approach to Recovery
Traditional recovery often focuses on stopping the behaviour. The Dynamo Project focuses on understanding the cause.
By addressing the underlying drivers — trauma, loss, identity, shame — the team helps people reconnect with who they were before addiction took hold.
This approach has stabilised lives, reconnected families, and restored hope. Demand for Dynamo's work continues to grow, reflecting both its effectiveness and the need for recovery models grounded in lived experience.
Dignity at the Centre
Recovery requires more than a roof. Residents live within LILAC Housing — Living In Light And Comfort: safe, carefully maintained homes where dignity, structure, and respect are non-negotiable.
Each acquisition quietly supports a recovery model built on trust, lived experience, and proven impact — allowing buyers to be part of restoring lives in a meaningful, effective way.