Psychiatric Art - The Cunningham Dax Collection

The Long Ward     2000
76cm x 96cm
Oil on Canvas

Currently showing at La Trobe Regional Gallery at Morwell in Victoria's Gippsland region is "Hide And Seek", an exhibition of self-portraits from the Cunningham Dax Collection.  Dr Eric Cunningham Dax collected thousands of artworks during the 1950's to the 1980's produced by patients of psychiatric hospitals.  Since then, the collection has been added to with acquisitions from the private sector and from survivors from the Holocaust.
Art practice was encouraged in institutions as a form of rehabilitation, clinical assessment and therapy.  Some of the images are confronting and reveal the battle between the inner self and external appearance.  For a graphic illustration of life on the edge, this exhibition is not to be missed and provides a powerful counterpoint to the proliferation of so-called identity art which almost drove critic Robert Hughes to distraction.  Pictured opposite is one of a series of paintings I produced after visiting an abandoned psychiatric hospital in the late 1990's.  The exhibition continues until 19th May.