Andy Wild’s work is displayed at Sale’s Waterside Arts Centre, Greater Manchester.
How would you deal with finding out you have a life-threatening brain tumour?
When Andy Wild found out he decided to become an artist.
Diagnosed with a brain tumour and epilepsy back in August 2009, Wild, 48, turned to his paint brushes after receiving the terrible news.
The artist said: “I thought I may as well have a bop at painting before I’m gone.”
Wild’s pieces are in a variety of media, in which he explores his illness and what it’s like being a patient, revealing his own experiences of the effects of the illness and medical treatments.
The results are affective, sensitive pieces which have helped both strangers and Wild’s friends and family understand what the illness is like, as well as connect with their own stories.
He said: “In my art, the colours I use correspond with how I’m feeling.
“I don’t plan my work but in A Reflection of Epilepsy [one of the works in the artist’s exhibition The Patient Experience] I was feeling very fatigued and frustrated, and the red and black colours respond to that.”
Wild’s art in his current exhibition, The Patient Experience, features a glass head filled with medication, his MRI scans illustrating his tumour, and even a real radiography mask.
In Medical Notes, Wild arranges various personal medical notes with the lettering ‘I don’t understand’ written over the top in red paint, expressing the confusion and disempowering nature of medical jargon.
Wild’s life has become a battle against the tumour, but his art allows him to vent some of his feelings.
Wild from Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria, said: When you go for a consultation with the doctors, you get in there and you’re like ‘Wow…has it [the tumour] grown or not?
“And if you hear it hasn’t then you’re so blissed out you don’t listen to anything else.”
Back in March 2012, Wild had his first exhibition, with Looking Well Studios in North Yorkshire.
The exhibition was entitled Raw and included the Wild’s first piece of art, which he painted during a free CancerCare art session.
All of Wild’s images feature a plaque explaining how each piece relates to him, often explaining about how his illness has affected him.
Wild said: ‘Lots of people I hadn’t seen for months or years came up to see the exhibition.
“It gave them a reason to see me – many just didn’t know how to say hello after I was diagnosed.”
Andy Wild’s current exhibition, The Patient Experience, is currently on show at the Waterside Arts Centre, in Sale, Greater Manchester.
The exhibition runs from July 13 to September 14.
For more information about The Patient Experience, visit: http://watersideartscentre.co.uk/whats-on/1300-the-patient-experience/
A HEAD FULL OF DRUGS: One of Andy Wild’s art sculptures inspired by his experience as a patient
Images courtesy of Andy Wild and Pioneer Projects Ltd’s film Art & Empowerment via Vimeo, with thanks.
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