Patients help create artwork designed to encourage recovery

Designs will be installed at our new Willow Therapy Unit

We’ve been working with Carl Rowe, an artist and academic who has worked extensively on public art including billboards, print portfolios and hospital art, on the art for the walls inside the Willow Therapy Unit.

Artist Carl Rowe and patients create art for Willow Therapy Unit

Carl has held a series of art workshops with NCH&C patients, staff, and volunteers, encouraging participants to explore balance through abstract design. As part of the workshops they experimented with balancing physical objects, resulting in small temporary sculptures.

The results were discussed and participants undertook some reflective writing in response. Finally, paintings and collages that present dynamism and stability through shape, line, and colour were created.

Art created by patientsArt created by NCH&C staff and patients

At the end of the workshops, everyone took some time to look at all the completed works and talk about them. Elements of the images made in the workshop will be included in the final designs for the commission.

Carl has vast experience of creating thought provoking and interesting artwork for hospital settings. In 2018 he was commissioned by Hospital Rooms to make work for Woodlands Mental Health Unit at Ipswich Hospital and is currently engaged in a new project with Hospital Rooms. Click here to see some past work.

The work he has created for the corridor space at Willow Therapy Unit with patients, is centred around the theme of Balance. Titled Gravity, the art references the invisible force that acts upon all objects on earth, making them fall unless balanced.

According to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, “A healthy balance system uses information from the brain, inner ears, eyes, and joints, and enables people to see clearly when moving their head.”

Art concepts for Willow Therapy unit

The artwork has been designed to encourage patients to move around the new unit to explore it in full as so will provide a backdrop to the therapy that will be provided at Willow. The range of shapes, colours, and words, and the way they are arranged have been created to ensure they are interesting, challenge the viewer, and don’t just fade into the background.