Visual Arts

Tree Of Life - the latest exhibition at the Thackray Museum - really has got some heart in it! In fact, all the pieces have been inspired by the beauty of the human heart and its blood supply. This extraordinary exhibition was put together over a period of five years by Dr Geoffrey Farrer-Brown, the arts charity - A Picture of Health - who use art to relieve stress on medical patients; and the British Heart Foundation.

'Heart Of Yew'

Fifteen different artists, including Alan Caiger-Smith who has works in the Victoria & Albert Museum as well as numerous public and private collections both here and abroad, and Susan MacFarlane who was one of the 48 artists commissioned by the Royal Mail to create paintings to be used as special millennium celebration stamps. Susan used the work of Florence Nightingale in raising the status of nursing to a caring profession as her inspiration. 

Each artist has created very different artworks using the 'Tree of life' theme. Artwork exhibited includes mosaic, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, glass, enamel, prints, watercolour paintings and mixed media work. The artists studied images of healthy and diseased hearts and looked at the anatomy of the blood supply, structure and the power of the muscles.

In a life of 70 years - the traditional 'three score and ten' - the human heart beats over two billion times. This exhibition shows how this is possible and what happens when things don't work as well as they should.

'Backlit Attack'

Dr Geoffrey Farrer-Brown explains the philosophy behind the exhibition: "I envisage the role of the exhibition to be in preventative medicine and to encourage the viewer to appreciate the beauty of the heart and its blood supply and consider the question 'Why damage this beauty by smoking?'"

All the works are privately owned and were produced between the years 1997 and 2002, including work by Alan Caiger-Smith, Stephanie Carleton Smith, Alan Evans, William Fairbank, Alan Farrant, Peter Layton, Susan MacFarlane, Jane Muir, Julianne Rasch, Maxine Relton, Elizabeth Turrell and pupils from the Chelsea Children's Hospital School.

'Tree Of Life' runs from Monday 21 July until Sunday 14 December 2008. The Museum is open daily, 10am – 5pm.