BOSTON -- Cancer isn’t sexy, but survival is, explained Pamina Brassey.

The Cohasset native, who agreed to pose topless for a London art gallery last year after undergoing breast cancer surgery, said that she hopes the photograph of her body will inspire others who face her struggle.

“I wanted to figure out what I could do to make a difference for the next generation of women that were going to get cancer, and it turned into this photograph,” Brassey told Wicked Local Bridgewater. “I saw that the scars are a symbol of my victory, and the photograph is an affirmation of life.”

Editor's Note: The photograph is not being published on TheBostonChannel.com, but it is available here.

Brassey, 49, was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer in February 2008 after discovering a lump on her breast over the winter holidays. She underwent a mastectomy in April 2008 to remove the cancer, followed by reconstructive surgery on her right breast.

The photograph of Brassey’s nude upper body was displayed at the Chelsea Arts Club in October 2008 in an exhibit called “extraordinary portraits.”

Brassey, a jewelery designer who moved to London in 1985, said she was first approached to pose nude by Playboy magazine at age 17, but turned the publication down. When a photographer friend proposed the nude portrait after her surgery, however, Brassey had a change of heart.

“It was not something that I wanted to do, but I am laughing now that I waited 31 years, and until I had a mastectomy, to be photographed nude. The difference is that now I have something to say,” Brassey told The London Evening Standard.

Brassey said she’s received letters from friends, strangers and cancer patients she’s never met thanking her for the portrait. She said she is also writing a book about her experience.

Brassey graduated from Cohasett High School in 1978. Her mother, a former Milton school teacher, still lives in the town.