Dustin Yellin

Dustin Yellin, American artist.

Images from the 'Dust in the basement' exhibition

Painting on multiple layers of perspex to for three dimensional images

 

Nina Saunders

Nina Saunders. UK artist.

 

http://www.ninasaunders.eu/ninasaunders-cur.html

 

She uses recognisable second-hand furniture, and deforms them so that they are dysfunctional, stripped of comfort, melting, harbouring tumours.

The work is all the more disturbing as the furniture is iconic, recognisable; it could be a chair that has been in your family for generations.

Where is the owner of this chair? Is it mirroring their condition?

 

 

Any day now

Muriel Gallan: Positive images of old age

Muriel Gallan, Photo journalist

 

http://www.murielgallan.co.uk/#/commissions/4572190500

 

Commision for Swansea Singleton Hospital care of the eldely ward. Photos of older people enjoying an active life. To highlight that aging and medical conditions do not have to stop patients enjoying activities that they enjoy.

 

Elderly care consultant Wyn Harris, who thought up the idea, said: "It is recognised there is an important crossover between the arts and medicine which is mutually beneficial.

"With regards to the pictures on elderly care wards, I think they are important for a number of reasons. They enliven and add interest to the ward environment.

''However, more import- antly, they remind patients, staff and visitors that being elderly is not just about illness and frailty — many elderly people have active and rewarding lives.

"It also helps us to see inpatients' illness episodes in the context of their life outside hospital."

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Student-Muriel-Gallan-brightens-elderly-care-ward/story-18502262-detail/story.html#ixzz2PlleLZ3O

Judy Somerville: Another generation

Judy Somerville. American artist.

http://www.gallerydir.com/art-web/ARTIST/data/ID/17

 

 

 

"As generation after generation of the elderly remain "unseen"and youngness becomes the mode; I say let's change this image . Let's forget the calendar girls and bring on the elderly as images of old people suddenly appear over every mantle place in America. Visions of old people are the autobiography to be of every person on earth. The elderly are a beautiful part of the natural world, after all what is beauty? Like rivers flowing through the forest each wrinkle defines The infinite quality of life's textures and experiences. An idealistic monumental vision mysteriously transforms reality in surprising ways. In these portraits I hope to portray another kind of beauty,sensuality and a nouveau eroticism. This is truely a new generation,the elderly through my eyes."

 

Alexis Fraser: A study of aging

Alexis Fraser, american artist.
Using panels to depict the aging process of one person.

http://alexisfraser.com/




Josh - Stages of life

"Here’s the irony. It’s interesting to me that when children are young, they so desperately want time to speed up so they can grow up and live life as adults with adult privileges. That is, of course, until they’re all grown up. Some dream, right? Suddenly it doesn’t seem as appealing. At this point, all you want is for time to slow down and take back the wrinkles it has set upon you. Aging is unavoidable. Although one may feel that it can weigh heavily on your appearance, those laugh lines, crow’s feet and yes, even saggy jowls speak your life and speak your legacy. So my theory is simple: Make what is unavoidable something that is beautiful."

Self Portrait - Stages of life

Jake Lever

The blue, the dim and the gold

 

 

 

I first saw this piece at Medicine Unboxed 2012. It is a beautiful representation of the journey that Jake made with his dad who had a terminal illness.

 

"I approach my practice as a contemplative activity. My images are often derived from fragments of medieval paintings, frescoes and icons. Recently the hand has provided a focus for my work, a framework for the exploration of frailty, vulnerability and the presence of the divine"
 

 

 

 

 

JAKE LEVER believes that the arts can be an aid to recovery and the ongoing wellbeing of a person. He will be debuting his huge and stunning piece, the Blue and the Dim and the Gold. As tiny, fragile vessels, adrift in a half-light world, Jake helps us navigate the ‘dark night of the soul’, buoyed by the belief that there is a shimmering beauty to be discovered in the darkness

Damien Hirst: The Last Supper

 

From http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hirst-salad-p11648/text-summary

 

Hirst has replaced the name of the drug with the name of a food traditional to working class British café culture, for example 'corned beef' and 'sausages', transforming the food into a brand by the addition of the insignia ®, TM or decorative typescript.

Such variations on the artist's name as Hirst, HirstDamien, Damien, Damien & Hirst, Hirst Products Limited, also set in a range of typescripts, have taken the place of the usual drug manufacturer's logo.

 

Hirst has compared medical packaging to the formats of minimalism, saying:

'a lot of the actual boxes of medicines are all very minimal and could be taken directly from minimalism, in the way that … minimalism implies confidence.'

 

For Hirst medicine, like religion and art, provides a belief system which is both seductive and illusory.

 

He has said:

'I can't understand why some people believe completely in medicine and not in art, without questioning either'
 

The Last Supper refers to the way in which medicinal drugs are becoming a regular part of everyday life, as common as the food Hirst has chosen to represent. Like pharmaceuticals, the side effects of which are not always pleasant or harmless, these common British foods often contain an unappetising and potentially dangerous cocktail of drugs, including whatever chemicals the industrially farmed animals have been fed, and notoriously large amounts of heart disease-inducing saturated fat.

Medicines, prescribed by doctors to alleviate and cure illness, are commodities manufactured and sold by large corporations. Like the Brillo boxes, Coke bottles and Campbell's Soup packaging imitated by American artist Andy Warhol (1928-87) in the 1960s, Hirst's version of The Last Supper refers to the everyday dependence on reliable panaceas which medical and fast food industries feed off (Warhol also submitted this subject to the manufacturing process of screenprinting).

Hirst has commented,

'I like the idea of an artist as a scientist. A painter as a machine. The packages in The Last Supper and in the medicine cabinets are … trying to sell the product … in a very clinical way. Which starts to become very funny.'

 

All of Hirst's thirteen components in his version of The Last Supper are potential betrayers, providing a humorously cynical comment on self-destructive aspects of British society.

Karen Kamenetzky: Cellular art



Karen Kamenetzky is a textile artist making quilts inspired by microscopic/ cellular imagery.

 

" A kind of visual invented biology with textiles"

 

 

"I find this imagery metaphorically rich since all change fundamentally happens on this infinitesimal level."

 

 

 

http://blog.karenkamenetzky.com/

Joanna Walsh Hospice drawings 2011

       

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/ars-moriendi/timelapse-video.aspx

Joanna Walsh’s ‘Ars Moriendi: the art of dying’ was an artwork created in the foyer space of Wellcome Collection, exploring our relationship with death through personal and quietly affecting drawings.

 

 

"It all started when the woman living next door to me, who is in her 90s, became bedridden. She is cared for at home by her widowed son. Her bedroom shares a wall with mine and I can hear her: sometimes she watches the telly, sometimes she talks to herself, sometimes she is in pain. She is having what most people consider to be a 'good' death: in her own home surrounded by her family, something not everyone is lucky enough to experience."

 

 

"I investigated art from Wellcome Library, including Ars Moriendi, the medieval instruction manual for a 'good' death in the Christian tradition, but also portrayals of death from other cultures and other eras: vanitas art designed to remind the living owner of the precarious nature of mortality, and grave goods from ancient civilisations made to ensure a smooth transition for the soul from its before- to after-death existence."

 

"I was surprised and impressed by the beauty and delicacy of the objects I found associated with such a dark and difficult subject. I wanted to make something that responded to these qualities."

"I chose to work at Sobell House Hospice because, although it cares for patients who need more medical attention than would be possible in their own homes, it allows patients, their families and friends to create their own environments, altering them as much or as little as they desire and circumstances allow."

 

"At the hospice I became interested in the personal objects patients find important to have with them, and how some seem familiar from the images I found at Wellcome - flowers, pictures, clocks - while others remain entirely personal."

 

"As in the original Ars Moriendi, residents are also encouraged (if they like) to prepare for death by creating something themselves: through music, art, writing or religious contemplation. In a culture where death is taboo and art about dying is scarce or considered morbid, there are few modern visual traditions surrounding 'a good death'.

 

 

"My final work, a large drawing on glass, reflects what I saw at Sobell.I used white on black. Both are traditionally associated with death in many cultures. Wanting to bring dying into the light, I decided to draw in public. And I chose to situate the work opposite the Wellcome Collection's cafe and bookshop so that it could serve the same meditative function as vanitas and Ars Moriendi art."

Stories from the day hospice

http://wellcomecollection.wordpress.com/category/stories-from-the-day-hospice/

Throughout the summer of 2012, Wellcome Trust Senior Editor Chrissie Giles spent time at the day hospice at Princess Alice Hospice, Esher, running a creative writing group. In a series of posts for the Wellcome Collection blog accompanying Death: A self-portrait, she reflected on her experiences there and showcased some of the writing produced by group members. These stories have now been gathered together as a single publication, and illustrated by Marianne Dear.

Sketches for Fragile Narratives, 2011

For my fragile narratives piece, I spent time in residential homes and with users of Age UK Day services in Cheltenham sketching people whilst they told me anecdotes from their past.

I really enjoyed this process, some of the stories, such as the lady who worked on the Enigma project in Bletchley park during the second world war, and the man who was an engineer who designed aeroplanes, were absolutely fascinating and unexpected.

Below are some of the sketches produced.