Thread: "Out of the flood"

I work two days a week in the Occupational Therapy Dept. at Shenton Park Rehabilitation Hospital here in Perth. I run a woodwork workshop and an art room as therapy for stroke victims and brain injured patients.
During the recent big storm part of the ceiling fell in, flooding the art room and resulting in about twelve pieces of art being ruined by water. Just throwing them out was not an option as a lot of effort had gone into them. Most were painted from a wheelchair, some painted with the patients' non-dominant hand. Some were just colourful daubs, but precious nonetheless.

I decided that I had to get something from this disaster, so I salvaged all the undamaged portions of the paintings and painstakingly cut them up into 50mm squares. With the help of two of the brain injured artists we reassembled them as a diptych to form an impressionistic landscape that we named "Out of the flood"

This colourful artwork (2400mm x 600mm) is now displayed in the Occupational therapy department along with the story of its creation as a visual reminder that positivity can always be found in adversity.


The first image is the whole painting (2.4 metres long.)

the second image is one half of the diptych.

The third image is a close up of some of the squares.

Pugwash, you have done well.....out of the ashes rose the Phoenix?....and to those who helped....congratulations.................AL

Reading/looking about things like your story is so so heart warming, made my day, looks great Pugwash well done, your a champion

What a way to save their work!!!

Thanks everyone. It was great to see the artists' faces as they realised that parts of their artwork we embedded in this work. They spent ages looking at it and pointing out the bits they had painted. It was a really worthwhile experience.