Artist Sally Haynes has produced seven original and imaginative artworks, using digital photography combined with conventional drawing for three hospitals in Southern England as part of a unique project exploring the creative territory shared by art and science. The resulting exhibition is on display at St Mary’s Hospital in the Full Circle and the Pathology Department waiting room. The two artworks for St Mary’s will remain on permanent display in the Pathology Department.

Sally was commissioned to investigate the working practices & equipment of 3 medical science teams by gaining unprecedented access to view the behind-the-scenes work of staff in Radiology at Southampton General Hospital, Wessex Genetics Laboratory at Salisbury District Hospital and Pathology at St. Mary’s Hospital, Newport, Isle of Wight. This enabled her to explore on a day to day basis, the images generated by the departments – from genetic codes to x-rays to microbiology & histopathology labs – and translate these into original works of art that show something of both the challenges and beauty of the world of contemporary medicine.

Sally says about her experience: “It’s been probably the most interesting and yet demanding nine months of my life. There is always art in science and science in art, it just depends on how you look at it.” The host departments also found that having an artist on site gave them the chance to view their work in a different way and to recognise that the worlds of the arts and sciences can have much in common visually.

The project was funded by Southern Arts -Year of the Artist, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Healing Arts – Isle of Wight, ArtCare, Partnerships for Arts in Healthcare and the participating departments.

The project was established under Year of the Artist, a national Arts Council of England project to celebrate living artists and to promote greater awareness of the role and status of the artist in society.