Hauser & Wirth’s new color range celebrates bringing art into the realm of mental health

While it’s common for the walls of Mayfair’s Hauser & Wirth to be adorned with a variety of important pictures, it’s rare to find them lined with more than 2,000 sheets of A4 paper. However, as part of the gallery’s collaboration with the Mental Health Hospitals, that’s exactly what happened.

Marking the culmination of a three-year partnership, Hospital Rooms and Hauser & Wirth recently launched Digital Art Schoolan in-depth experience in making art that focuses on people in areas of mental health. In general, it seeks to support people with severe mental illness (SMI) and their carers.

The exhibition is a physical representation of the art workshops offered by Hospital Rooms in mental health facilities across England. The papers—most of which are blank, some of which contain pictures that motivate program participants—represent the hundreds of people the project reaches each week.

What are Hospital Room Parks in relation to the project?

“What we’ve been thinking about is that anyone in a mental health facility should have a unique artistry, and be able to express themselves creatively,” says the co-founder of the Chambers of Hospital, Tim A. Shaw. “Our supply boxes are full of art supplies worth several hundred pounds, and we’ve sent one to each of the 750 mental hospitals in the country.”

These boxes are lined with exhibition stands, filled with high-quality paints, pens, pencils and papers, many of which have been donated to the project by art brands such as Winsor & Newton. The boxes have the feel of luxury shopping—each decorated by Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá—a selection meant to bring joy and excitement to often unwelcoming spaces, where budgets and security requirements may make such things less likely.

In order to stimulate experimentation with these tools, participants were also given access to in-person and pre-recorded programs by more than 40 artists, who, Shaw points out, are no school and an artistic filter would be proud to receive it. Throughout the exhibition visitors of all ages and abilities will be able to try similar programs, after which their works on paper will join those that already cover the walls of the gallery.

Who do Hospital Rooms support?

The organizers hope that this project will draw wider attention to the positive effect of making art without expectation or pressure – and to the number of people who can benefit from such an opportunity. In England in 2022/23, 3.58 million people – or just over 6% of the population – have had a conversation. with NHS supported mental health, learning disability or autism services. Of these, more than 90,000 were admitted to inpatient facilities. And their stay is increasing.

For artist and workshop leader Nengi Omuku, the role her work can play in the lives of those with SMI is clear. The topic of the workshop was: what brings you happiness? Omuku remembers a lesson he did in October last year. “We were working with textiles and one person was making a hot air balloon. He said the hot air balloon was his symbol of freedom—meaning freedom from the constraints of his mind and all the things in him brought to this place.”

The service user in question asked Omuku to include hot air balloons in a painting he was doing on behalf of Hospital Rooms, and he immediately agreed. That design, a brightly colored space, is now reimagined on a larger scale down the floor of the Digital Art Schoolwith user-friendly hot air balloons represented by playfully decorated bean bags.

Elsewhere in the gallery, a 2023 painting by artist Do Ho Suh – who is best known for building old textiles into his old houses – sits next to a sculpture by Rana Begum, whose works his invisible that blurs the boundaries of sculpture, painting. and buildings. Alongside them are works by Susie Hamilton, Peter Liversidge, Sutapa Biswas, Martno Gamper and others.

Also sitting on the walls is a series of “representations”. These quotes, given by names including Harold Offeh and Julian Opie, are meant to “inform to escape, surprise or make someone’s day”. It’s a concept that speaks to the heart of the Hospital Rooms vision.

How did the charity come about?

Shaw and co-founder Niamh White started their work with Hospital Rooms in 2016, with the aim of bringing art and creativity to people in mental health facilities. Since then, they have been commissioning artists to produce unique work in the area of ​​mental health ever since.

The couple were inspired to take up their causes after a close friend was separated following a suicide attempt, and after a visit to the friend’s health department. The beauty of the mind opened their eyes to the problem within these organizations.

Shaw recalls: “It was amazing how cold and empty it was. “The staff at these mental health centers do a very difficult and very wonderful job—they take care of people. But places don’t care about people. ”

• Digital Art School at Hauser & Wirth, London, until 10 September. Works from the exhibition will be auctioned online between September 11 and 12. A further auction will take place at 5pm on September 11