The cafe.

[England], 2001.

1 painting : acrylic on paper ; 76 x 50.5 cm

David Beales is an artist and writer. He was admitted to Farnborough Psychiatric Unit at the age of 21, and spent the next twenty years in and out of a number of different hospitals. In the early 1990s, he was discharged from Stone House Hospital as part of the Care in the Community initiative. His art portrays the world of psychiatric patients, drug users, musicians and artists, and has been exhibited at Bethlem Museum of the Mind. His compositions are informed by real life events, and are seen by the artist as mapping an area of social history which is underrepresented.

Acquired with David Beales archive PP/DBL

Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial CC BY-NC 4.0

Wellcome Collection 3313100i

D.Beales (signed lower right on recto). Suburban landscape (in pencil on verso).

Title provided by the artist.

"Another painting called Suburban Landscape. It is also called 'The Cafe' which I think is a better title and will avoid confusion. It was painted in 2001. The first painting was inspired entirely by a dream. I made a quick sketch as soon as I woke up and worked from it. The second painting, 'The Cafe' is informed partly by a dream I had of Bexley. The people with the heads of birds are patients in the community. The heads of birds are meant to represent the side effects of psychiatric drugs. They were not from the dream, they were put there deliberately. The green people in the canals are just something I saw in the dream, they have no intended meaning." -- David Beales 22/03/2023

Donated to Wellcome Collection by David Beales in 2019.