My mother, Tina McKenzie, who has died aged 99, was an artist whose role as a diplomat’s wife led to her living all over the world during profound political and social change.

She arrived in India with her husband, Roderick, so that he could take up his posting in 1948, a year after partition. Next came South Africa, during the time of Harold Macmillan’s visit in 1960 and his “Wind of Change” speech signalling a shift in British policy towards apartheid. In Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the mid-1960s, Tina witnessed violence between the Tamils and Sinhalese, but also the wonder of the annual Perahera procession.

Toronto in Canada opened up a vibrant artistic community, but the Quebec Liberation Front’s kidnapping of my father’s boss, the British trade commissioner, James Cross, in 1970, cast a shadow.

In Dublin, she loved the warmth of the people, despite being caught up in the petrol-bombing of the British embassy in 1972. Wherever she lived, Tina maintained an artist’s eye for colour, texture and place.

Tina had developed a love of art in childhood, through her grandmother, whose great-uncle was the landscape painter George Burrell Willcock. She continued to learn techniques throughout her life, and while living abroad would immerse herself in the art scene, befriending and learning from artists such as the Sri Lankan batik practitioner Ena da Silva and the Toronto-based Swiss artist Heidi Bucher.

Thus her work continually evolved. Towards the end, she turned to collage, sitting at her work table every morning tearing up magazines. In April, two of Tina’s pieces were selected for the Resonance exhibition at the Fabrica gallery in Brighton.

Born in Croydon, Surrey (now south London), to Ellen Verrall, a seamstress, who named her Betty, she never knew her father, and was raised by her grandmother, Marianne, from the age of three. The outbreak of the second world war disrupted her schooling, as she moved back and forth between Brighton and Croydon. Aged 14, having changed her name to Tina, she won a scholarship to do a two-year secretarial course at Greggs Commercial College.

On leaving she worked for a chartered accountant in London, until a year after her marriage to Roderick McKenzie in 1947. As the wife of a British diplomat, Tina was barred from undertaking paid work in the host country. Nevertheless, she embraced her role, doing voluntary work in schools and care homes alongside her artwork.

On retirement in 1976, the couple settled in Ovingdean, Brighton. After Roderick’s death in 2005, Tina moved to Rottingdean and took up new activities and friends. She published a poetry collection, a memoir and a catalogue of her artwork, and exhibited in local art shows.

Tina is survived by her children, Kerrith, Rachel, Sarah and me, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.