Looking to the Light
The World’s Largest Chocolate Button
Five artists display their pictures following ten mornings of exploration in the Museum.
Their inspiration has been drawn from the stories and beautiful colours in our stained glass windows as well as the curious objects on display.
The Step Up: Exploring Collections course and the exhibition at Glenside Hospital Museum have been 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 are 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.
His oil paintings are for sale.
Website: georgejharding.co.uk
Instagram: @georgejharding.art
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