Art of Caring online exhibition in May 2020

Dear artists,
We hope you are all safe and well wherever you are in the world today.
Thank you for submitting your artwork to the Art of Caring exhibition, and supporting Nurses and Carers through your creative endeavours.
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic St George's Hospital have asked us to postpone the postcard exhibition. They are very keen and supportive of the exhibition and have asked us to put it up at the earliest opportunity once the current crisis is over.
The postcards are currently being printed so we are ready for when this happens.
The staff at the School of Nursing at Kingston University are currently choosing the poster image for the exhibition. They pass on their thanks to you all.
The curatorial team at St Pancras Hospital are delighted with your contributions too. They will make a decision about the second Art of Caring exhibition when things become a little clearer. Thank you to everyone who filled out the form for this exhibition.

To help support the incredible work our Nurses and Carers are doing at this difficult time we will be running an online exhibition during May 2020.
Each day during May we will be featuring the work of 4 artists on our blog/website. www.artofcaring.org.uk
Don't forget it is International Nurses Day on the 12th May 2020.
Alban, Bryan, Dean and the St George's Hospital staff will choose one artwork per person.
The scheduled date of when your artwork will be shown online is below.

To accompany your image there will be a short biography about you, a link to your website (if you have one) and a statement or quote that is personal to you. This statement/quote might be something about how Nurses or Carers have helped you or your family during your life, or it might reflect what is currently happening during the Coronavirus pandemic.

If you would like to contribute this information yourself then send Alban this information before midnight on 26th April.
1) A short biography about you as an artist 
2) Your website
3) A statement/quote about the role of Nurses/Carers in your life
Email either Alban's personal email address or collectconnect4@gmail.com
Please be patient, we will be working with all 124 artists so it will be very busy. We also have family to look after, which means we won't always be able to respond to every email. Be kind to us, thank you.

Finally. Once the postcards have had their final finish here we will be able to send them out to you.
If you would like to receive them then send us your street address in an email.

Thank you once again for getting involved and please stay safe,
Alban (Dean and Bryan)
www.collectconnect.co.uk

Art of Caring Online exhibition 2020
Aaron J Little 20/05/2020
Aasiri Wickremage 15/05/2020
Adam Drouet 07/05/2020
Alan Carlyon Smith 31/05/2020
Alban Low 25/05/2020
Alexandre Santacruz 21/05/2020
Ally Zlatar 20/05/2020
Amanda Van Der Zant 07/05/2020
Amna Walayat 28/05/2020
Ana Miljkovac 26/05/2020
Ann Froggatt 28/05/2020
Ann Kopka 10/05/2020
Anna Bulgakova 18/05/2020
Anna O'Doherty 05/05/2020
Aran Illingworth 20/05/2020
Ayşegül Altunok 19/05/2020
B a r b a r a   Schneider 23/05/2020
Beatrice Bromley 09/05/2020
Beth Barlow 11/05/2020
Bryan Benge 08/05/2020
Carole Loeffler 28/05/2020
Catherine Jack 15/05/2020
Catriona Smith 25/05/2020
Charlotte W Stubbs 08/05/2020
Chiara Cavarzan 29/05/2020
Chloe Ann Munday 12/05/2020
Chloe Laurence and Tom Francome 24/05/2020
Chris Brown 30/05/2020
Chris Holley 27/05/2020
CJ Crosland 18/05/2020
Clare Owen 27/05/2020
Collette Costello 14/05/2020
Corinne Perry 06/05/2020
Constanza Sofia Miranda 28/05/2020
Dacc e Dukjan 12/05/2020
Daniel Zlota 05/05/2020
Daniele Bongiovanni 02/05/2020
Danny Mooney 19/05/2020
David Robinson 26/05/2020
Dean Reddick 21/05/2020
Durre Sameen 23/05/2020
Emily Naine 27/05/2020
Gabriella Ranito 04/05/2020
George Mavrikos 18/05/2020
Gerrard Lindley 01/05/2020
GIDEON CONN 30/05/2020
Giovanna Iorio 14/05/2020
Grant Radford & Zoe Maslen. Accent 16/05/2020
Hamish Young 30/05/2020
Hannah Lehane 01/05/2020
Helen Grundy 02/05/2020
Helen Roeten 13/05/2020
Helen Tate 17/05/2020
Henry Kenyon 29/05/2020
Jade Atkinson 02/05/2020
Jane Walker 26/05/2020
Janet Stafford 09/05/2020
Jean Mooney 19/05/2020
Jeff Hunter 25/05/2020
Jennifer Weston 10/05/2020
Jenny Meehan 06/05/2020
Jina Wallwork 01/05/2020
Jon Halls 05/05/2020
Julie Bennett 04/05/2020
Jura Brian Joyce 17/05/2020
Karen Winship 12/05/2020
Kath Lovett 07/05/2020
Katie Frost 22/05/2020
Katy Sayers Green 21/05/2020
Klaus Pinter 07/05/2020
Laura Atkinson 02/05/2020
Laura Parker 04/05/2020
Laura Scull 14/05/2020
Laurence Morgan 10/05/2020
Lieske Weenink 03/05/2020
Lily Mooney 31/05/2020
Lotta Barlach 27/05/2020
Louisa Pankhurst Johnson 15/05/2020
Lucy Clayton 20/05/2020
Lucy Oates 24/05/2020
Lydia Fernandez-Arias 08/05/2020
Mahlia Amatina 13/05/2020
Maria Lezon 08/05/2020
Marina Medef 23/05/2020
Marius Els 12/05/2020
Mark Carr 03/05/2020
Martin Hill 26/05/2020
Martina Scott 04/05/2020
Mary Conway 24/05/2020
Melanie Honebone 06/05/2020
Mia-Jane Harris 29/05/2020
Misty Athena Stokes 11/05/2020
Monique Martin 03/05/2020
Nadia Uppal 31/05/2020
Nicholas Sweet 14/05/2020
Nicky Chubb 18/05/2020
Nicole Lyster 05/05/2020
Paul March 11/05/2020
Paula De Sousa 15/05/2020
Poppy Field 24/05/2020
Rachael Murray - Created by family carers in Suffolk 17/05/2020
Rakhee Shah 05/05/2020
Raul Moya Mula 16/05/2020
Rebecca Sainsot-Reynolds 22/05/2020
Richard Young 06/05/2020
Ryoko Minamitani 19/05/2020
Sam M Harley 25/05/2020
Sara Jayne Harris 11/05/2020
Sarah Foque 16/05/2020
SEAN WORRALL 03/05/2020
Shannon Amey 22/05/2020
Simon Richardson 29/05/2020
Sonia Ben Achoura 23/05/2020
Stella Tripp 09/05/2020
Sue Thompson 16/05/2020
Susan Plover 30/05/2020
Teri Anderson 22/05/2020
Tracy Boness 18/05/2020
Tracy Ferriss 31/05/2020
Trevor Coopersmith 10/05/2020
Vaiva Kovieraitė 21/05/2020
William Stok 17/05/2020
Yvonne Vignes 13/05/2020
Zelga Miller 09/05/2020
Zoe Douglas-Cain 13/05/2020

Art of Caring opens at St Pancras Hospital

It was a wonderful evening at the St Pancras Hospital gallery when we launched our fifth ART OF CARING exhibition. A lovely balmy evening brought out a big crowd of art lovers who spilled out into the St Pancras courtyard. The evening was launched by a fantastic passionate speech from St Pancras/CANDI CEO Angela McNab followed by Professor Karen Norman from Kingston University. She presented a well deserved award to the winner of the Art of Caring Writing Competition, Bola Lafe. Then we were treated to fabulous entertainment from Matt Grabham and his magic subterranean violin, Paul Destry with two soul searching blues numbers and our headliner Lucinda Sieger who performed with professional sparkle and joy and captivated our audience with 3 of her key hit songs.

Many thanks to all the artists supporting us who came with family and friends. Reaction to the artwork is strong and positive .Watch out for the premiere of Anna Bowman's new film about the exhibition on our closing night 4/10/19. 

Thank you to the continued support from The Nursing school at Kingston University and Peter Herbert and his team at St Pancras. This is truly a magical exhibition.

If you would like to see a larger selection of photos then follow this link - https://photos.app.goo.gl/19TmbhuMmTXFFvuL8

Art of Caring film night

The Art of Caring closed on October 19th 2017 at St Pancras Hospital with a wonderful night of artistic goodbyes, where fresh ideas flowed forth and future plans were laid. It was an opportunity for artists to collect their work and for the buyers to take their treasured purchases home.


Anna Bowman premiered her brilliant short film about the 2017 Art of Caring exhibition. Curated by Peter Herbert, the Gallery exhibition expands CollectConnect's St George's Hospital Art of Caring show, held in connection with International Nursing Day. As you probably already know Alban and the CollectConnect team started the annual Art of Caring exhibition in 2015. The film gives us a unique insight into the exhibition and we also meet nine of the 35 artists whose work is on show at the Gallery, St Pancras Hospital and see many of the 200 postcards and haikus first displayed at St George's Hospital.

We hope the future of the Art of Caring is secure and we'll return in 2018.

Review - Art of Caring at St Pancras Hospital

Review by London City Nights (19/09/2016)

You feel a weird combination of reassurance and worry walking through the doors of an NHS clinic. The staff are busy yet friendly, the walls are festooned with upbeat primary coloured posters and there's a pleasantly paternalistic atmosphere. This is a place designed to make you well, doing its level best to send you out the door in better shape than you walked in.

But then you notice the damp on the walls, the peeling paint and furniture that hasn't been replaced in 20 years. The NHS is suffering the death of a thousand cuts: the victim of a government ideologically opposed to a free at the point of use publicly owned health service. Jeremy Hunt assures us that they're merely 'modernising' the NHS when anyone with a glimmer of sense can see that he's setting it up to fail, its carcass fodder for the circling corporate vultures of the American healthcare industry. I mean, if it's not making investors any money, what's the point of it?


So it's wonderful to see an exhibition like The Art of Caring - a collection of work from nurses, patients and artists depicting their ideas on the theme of caring, specifically nursing. The exhibition is collaboration between Kingston University, The Arts Project and Camden & Islington NHS Foundation Trust, featuring work that ranges from photography, painting, performance and sculpture. Some of it is professional and polished, some is rough and passionate, but all displays a tenderness and empathy that perfectly suits the surroundings.

(Fractured Memories) Doll Therapy by Aran Illingworth

There's a lot to take in here, but I particularly enjoyed the following. (Fractured Memories) Doll Therapy by Aran Illingworth. It's a quietly devastating canvas piece about Alzheimers, capturing a painful morsel of misery in the eyes of someone whose memory is gradually eroding away. The arts n crafts textile look adds to the emotional wallop, not only looking like something a kindly grandmother might make, but the rough shapes and soft fabric underlining the subjects humanity and increasingly blurry edges.

Comfort and Joy - Susie Mendelsson

On a slightly different wavelength is Susie Mendelsson's Comfort and Joy, a bizarre mixed-media sculpture of a creepily wizened homunculus approaching a baby from behind while a tiny man stares on in horror. It's disturbing stuff, the soft manufactured plastic of the doll contrasting with the hand-carved chaos of the monster. That title has got to be a joke, because there's precious little comfort or joy in this. If I had to pick out a meaning, it seems to speak of a mother's trauma at losing a baby, then feeling guilt that the next one survives. Even as she cares for her healthy baby, she cannot help but imagine the forgotten one, balefully staring on in jealousy.

One Day at a Time - Susie Mendelsson

Also by Mendelsson is One Day at a Time, depicting a worried looking person weighed down by faceless little men. This is a little easier to parse, but no less effective. Here the effect of the paranoias, traumas and miseries of the past is literalised, showing them crawling all over an apparently normal person going about their day to day life. It looks suitably nightmarish, the haunted expression of the central figure conveying a palpable desperation.

Charlotte CHW

Sunday's event was capped off by a live performance from Charlotte CHW, who was also exhibiting photographs. Dressed in a suit that perfectly matched the brickwork of the building, she writhed about against the walls and on the floor accompanied by a soundtrack of breaking glass. Watching this it's difficult not to look up at the gently spooky Victorian brickwork and wonder just how long this hospital is going to last. Generations of Londoners have walked through these halls, each with their own individual ailments and stories to tell.


The performance understands this history, treating the building like a psychological sponge that's sucked up a century of trauma and needs to be squeezed dry.  Charlotte's movements are slow, painful and precise - it's like you can see dust crumbling from her joints as she repeatedly collapses and rises, trapped in some infinite loop of pain, healing and more pain. I dug it.


Anyhow, The Art of Caring is well worth checking out, demonstrating not only the public's affection for the NHS and its nurses, but just how critical its long-term support systems are. Whether you've sprained your ankle, suffered trauma in Blair's oil wars or are watching an elderly relative succumb to dementia, the NHS will always be there. But it also needs us to fight for it.


Art is Caring is at The Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital, 4 St Pancras Way, London NW1 OPE (9am-5pm) until 13 October 2016.

The Exhibition finishes with a Closing Event on the 13th October 2016, 5.30-7.30pm.

St Pancras Hospital exhibition for Art of Caring

Last week the Art of Caring exhibition returned to the gallery walls for the public to view and enjoy. A large section of the artwork that graced the Rose Theatre gallery in May 2016 moved to its new venue in St Pancras Hospital for an extended run until October 2016.

Karin Andrews Jashapara

The exhibition has a different flavour entirely from the one we saw in May. Peter Herbert has overseen the curation of the exhibition alongside his assistants Elaine Harper-Gay and Jane. He has created an exciting and bright new show that utilises 30 original works as well as many of the original postcards, these have been grouped together thematically to great effect. He hasn't included every work from the original show, so check the contributors list below.

The address if you would like to visit is, THE CONFERENCE CENTRE, ST PANCRAS HOSPITAL, 4 ST PANCRAS WAY, LONDON, NW1 OPE. It is open Monday to Friday 9.00am - 5.00pm (TRAVEL/BUS 46/214 TUBE/KINGS CROSS). Free Entry.

The exhibition finishes on Thursday 13th October 2016 with another inventive party. We'll post more details here in due course.

Welcoming guests to the opening event, Caroline Harris-Birtles, C&I’s Deputy Director of Nursing, said: “At Camden and Islington we are very keen to continue our strong support for art generally, but also specifically use this event as inspiration to attract further creativity from our own staff and service users.”

Left to right -

Professor Karen Norman, Peter Herbert and Caroline Harris-Birtles

Karen Norman, Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Kingston University and St Georges, part of London University, said the exhibition provided a showcase for what nurses did, but also to share some of their additional hidden talents and celebrate all that was good about the nursing profession.

The opening evening also featured singers and music from Key Changes, a charity that provides music engagement and recovery services in hospitals and the community for people experiencing mental health problems.

Artists exhibiting at the St Pancras Exhibition include -

Adesuwa D Igbinedion Nigie
Alan Carlyon Smith
Alban Low
Alexandra Billingham
Alice Auton
Alicia Bolich
Alison Clare Barrett
Amandeep Kaur Dahele
Amelia Bradley
Amy Bowers
Amy Mack
Andie Rose
Andrew Bolton
Ann Charlesworth
Ann Froggatt
Ann Kopka
Anne Guest
Anny Rice
Aran Illingworth
Aurelia Edmiston
Becky Fawcett
Beth Dodd
Biju Abraham
Bravika Chautan
Bryan Benge
Branko Jovanović
C. Carey
Camilla Afren
Carmel Blackie
Carne Griffiths
Carole Scott
Carolyne Kardia
Chantelle Benjamin
Charlie Osbourn
Charlotte CHW

Cheryl Bell
Çiğdem Menteşoğlu

Claire Leboutet
Crisna Maugi
Cristina Prudente
Dan Waters
Daniel Tejada
Daniella Scantori
David Evans
David Napier
Dean Reddick
Diana Trinca
Ed Arantus
Ekta Shah
Ella Penn
Ellen Haskins
Elliot Inglese
Emma Sackett
Emelia Adjei-Nyamekeh
Emily Davis
Emily Latham
Eskild Beck
Esperanza Tielbaard
Fatima Iqbal
Francine Neal
Friba Sarajzada
Gemma Pumford
George Keal
Georgia Clark
Harvey Wells
Hayley Walke
Helen Carter
Imogen Perkin
Interlany Cabral Phillips
Ire Bademosi
Izzy Prentice
Jackie Bennett
Jacqueline Talbot
Jelena Jovančov
Jenny Meehan
Jessica Adrianna Wayar 
Jill Mercer
Jo Peters
Josef Van den Bergh
Jovana Mitić
Jude Gill
Judith Parry
Julie Edwards
Kajal Shah
Karen Fay
Karin Andrews Jashapara
Kate Ward
Kayliegh Daly
Kisha Rai Limbu
Lauren Clark
Lesley Cartwright
Lisa Lecky
Ljiljana Stevanović
Louise Agyepong
Maisha Mapimhidze
Marchelle Boateng
Margret Emakpose
Mark Carr
Mary-Jane Todd
Matthew Woodward
Melanie Ezra
Michael Bolstridge
Mike Russell
Nargis Begum
Natalie Low
Natalie Snow
Nataliya Zozulya
NATASA MARINKOVIC PETRIC
Nikita Gwung
Nikki Yun
Olubukunola Temidava
Opal Moore
Patience Chejerai
Paula Cannon
Peter S Smith
Peter Turton
R. Bokino
Rachel Donnet
Ray Hobbs
Rebecca Dayalsingh
The Rev’d. Robin Pfaff
Rochell Walker-Collins
Ross Anderson
Ross Godwin
Roz Cran
Rumen Deshev
Sally Ward
Sharon Read
Smith Sinwar
Susie Mendelsson
Stacy Harris
Stella Tripp
Stephanie Selena Powell
Streka Canapi
Susan Farley
Syeda Udelin
Tamara Jelaca
Teresa Hunt
Theresa Nash
Tracy Boness
Tracy Ferriss
Tracey Adjedion
Trudi Levis
Tzedal Tesfamariam
Veronica
Wayne Sleeth
Will Weatherburn
Yvette Douglas
Zoe