Looking at and reflecting on art about health, illness, ability and disability can teach us a lot, and should be encouraged more as CPD. There are many works made by artists with lived experience of disability and illness that show personal, intimate understandings of what life is like as an individual and as a part of society. Through art, there is the ability to express concepts that may be difficult to explain in words. As an occupation it allows artists to therapeutically communicate their inner selves with others, to aid in understanding themselves, or to highlight unique perspectives and identities. There are also many great artworks on this subject made by artists without disabilities, who seek to understand and reflect on the experiences of others. As healthcare practitioners seeking to enhance our understanding and empathy with clients, reflecting on art is a powerful tool for learning and developing a deeper appreciation of lived experiences.
Below is a brief introduction to some of my favourite artists who have interpreted illness and disability through their work:
Bryan Charnley
The late Bryan Charnley lived with schizophrenia throughout his adult life, with periods of time spent in hospital. He produced surreal, vivid, colourful, busy paintings that reflected his thoughts and perceptions of himself and the outside world. In a single painting he could express a number of different scenes, separate and contrasting to each other, but also flowing into and confusing each other, in a way that he hoped to communicate his difficult inner life with the viewers.
https://www.bryancharnley.info/
Christopher Samuel
Christopher is a multidisciplinary artist who has created a number of thought provoking works based around his experiences of disability. These have included: ‘Welcome Inn’, a sleep-in installation where participants could experience inaccessibility through a mock hotel room that made tasks difficult for non-disabled people; ‘Swinging in the Wind’, a series of prints based on conversations with men who have experienced cancer; ‘Cared 4 Network’, a humorous and painful mockery of the impersonal and judgmental notes left by carers in clients properties; and the recent ‘Everywhere and Nowhere’, a video made with The National Trust about previously untold histories of disability across Trust sites.
https://www.christophersamuel.co.uk/
Christine Sun Kim
Christine is a deaf artist with a varied and fascinating span of work. In ‘Edges of Sign Language’ she explores the limits of the physical shapes drawn in the air when using American Sign Language. She creates canvas shapes to echo this, and to delve deeper into the meaning and significance of language.
She has further delved into the physical space of using sign language, and the importance of positioning when communicating, through a triptych of drawings showing signs of the alphabet from three points of view- from the speller, from a lurker, and a birds eye view.
Christine has also created many images, using simple black drawings and writing, to discuss personal experiences of deafness and to represent synaesthetic concepts such as ‘The Sound of Obsessing’, ‘The Sound of Temperature Rising’ and ‘The Sound of Apathy’.
https://ghebaly.com/work/christine-sun-kim/
Helen Rimell
After Helen’s mum was diagnosed with vascular dementia, Helen began documenting her life through photography, in a project she has named ‘No Longer Her(e)’. She takes beautiful, brutal and touching portraits of her mum and their family, showing the cruel progression of dementia, and also her experiences as a daughter and carer.
https://www.bobanddianefund.org/2023-grantee
Alison Lapper
Alison was born without arms and with shortened legs. She grew up in an institution and defied others expectations by learning to drive, moving into her own home and becoming a mother. Alison paints by controlling the paintbrush with her mouth. She also creates photographs of herself which celebrate her body in strong, defiant and proud poses, challenging the accepted ideal of beauty. In 2016 she co-presented the BBC programme ‘No Body’s Perfect’ with photographer Rankin.
Anahita Harding
In 2023 Anahita, a wheelchair user, spent 3 hours scaling the 311 steps of the Great Fire of London Monument using only her arms. This was a piece of activist performance art highlighting the difficulties that disabled people can have if needing to evacuate buildings in an emergency.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64541346
Marc Quinn
In ‘The Complete Marbles’, Marc commissioned a series of marble sculptures of people without all their limbs. This was in direct reference to classical antique sculptures missing limbs through damage, which have become normalised images, and arguably more acceptable and comfortable to look at than real people without limbs. It also questions whether people born without limbs are in fact missing them, rather than being whole as they are.
The Complete Marbles (marcquinn.com)
I have written about one of the pieces here:
If you liked this blog post, you may also like:
Therapeutic Writing for Occupational Therapists
Slow Art Day, Ekphrasis and The Occupations of Looking and Seeing
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