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Step Up: Exploring Collections with Outside In
Five artists displayed their pictures following ten mornings of exploration in the Museum
Their inspiration was drawn from the stories and beautiful colours in our museum's stained glass windows as well as the curious objects on display.
The Step Up: Exploring Collections course and the exhibition at Glenside Hospital Museum were developed in partnership with national arts charity Outside In and funded by The Arts Society Patricia Fay Memorial Fund.
Outside In provides a platform for artists who encounter significant barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance, or isolation.
It is an important and rare example of an organisation with national reach championing the work of artists excluded from the art world. Outside In provides a digital platform for its artists to show their work and three programmes of activity: artist development, exhibitions, and training.
The artists were supported by PROPS, a Bristol charity working with adults with learning disabilities to achieve their full potential. PROPS provide access to practical learning, skills development and worthwhile, accessible work-based experiences.
PROPS is located in the fully accessible Vassall Centre in Fishponds, providing day opportunities for 49 weeks of the year.
George Harding portraits
Over the past five years, alongside working on his art, George has been working in care, looking after people with learning disabilities.
‘The care job has helped my understanding of people that is beneficial to my own development and has helped me in my recovery from mental illness. My work is to support the clients to lead their best lives and is reciprocated as they give me a new sense of purpose, joy and gratitude in my own life. The relationships that are built are meaningful. As a carer I don’t feel valued by the systems of society but I feel valued by the people I look after and the portraits show the value of this dynamic.’
The paintings are strongly influenced by the French Romantic painter Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) who painted a series of 10 portraits of the insane for a friend who was a psychiatric doctor showing different aspects of madness.
George wanted to do something similar by painting the people he cared for showing their value celebrating and highlighting their humanity and importance.
George Harding is an artist based in Bristol. He produces art that represents an exploration of his thoughts, as well as portraits and landscapes. He aims to find a greater sense of self, vision and spirit through the process of making art.
Photo gallery
Visit Us
Glenside Hospital Museum is located within the grounds of the old psychiatric hospital housed in the 1881 Grade II listed asylum church. The main hospital building is now used by the University of West of England as their Health and Social Care Campus. We’re in situated in the Grade II listed church just inside the grounds. For more details, including group booking and accessibility, please see our visiting page.
"If you have never been to Glenside Hospital Museum, it is a wonderful museum. It is not gloomy or depressing but fascinating and hopeful. A really progressive institution."
Julie Begen
"A fabulous history of the area, the hospitals, and of approaches to mental health and learning disabilities. An amazing array of artefacts, surgical instruments and ephemera. The staff were really welcoming and knowledgeable. Absolutely loved it!"
Lea Roberts
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