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“WE WANT TO OPEN UP DEBATE. WE WANT TO EXPLORE” SUZIE WALKER-MILLAR, BETHLEM MUSEUM OF THE MINDincluding Los Angeles’ The Broad from October until next January. “If it were not for art,” she is often quoted as saying, “I would have killed myself a long time ago.”Visual art can communicate experiences, such as the feelings evoked by Kusama’s hallucinations, which can’t be neatly and logically expressed with words. As Grayson Perry said at the Bethlem Museum’s launch, when you contemplate an artwork, you are in the privileged position of “looking at someone’s unconscious speaking to your unconscious.” He will be working with the museum in September on a project regarding the ‘art of recovery’.We may never be able to fully explain processes such as these in objective, scientific terms, but in helping to remove stigmas and taboos surrounding mental illness, institutions like the Bethlem Museum of the Mind allow the interplay of creativity and psychological experiences to be explored in imaginative and illuminating ways. “We use our collections to bring mental health issues to the attention of the wider public,” Suzie Walker-Millar says. “We want to open up debate. We want to explore. We want to talk about how we can be healthy individuals functioning in an extremely complex world.” It is clear that art can play an important role in enabling this type of wellbeing for both practising artists and art lovers, no matter what types of psychological challenges they face. Scaling the Citadel: The Art of Stanley Lench Until 30 September, Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Bethlem Royal Hospital, Beckenham, BR3 3BXWed-Fri, some Saturdays, 10am–5pm, freemuseumofthemind.org.ukBRIGHT STARVan Gogh’s starry nights and preference for yellow hues have helped to make him one of history’s best-known artists. But it is possible that both of these were indirectly caused by illness.As well as both manic and depressive episodes, Van Gogh suffered from seizures, possibly epilepsy, which was commonly treated with digitalis. He also consumed large amounts of absinthe. Interestingly, a side effect of both is a yellowing of the visual field, which may account for his particular interest in the colour. In addition, Van Gogh may have had lead poisoning (he often nibbled paint chips and one of his physicians, Dr Peyton, reported that he had even drunk paint during a suicide attempt). Lead poisoning can produce blurred vision, especially at night – an effect similar to that around the stars in many of his works.45IMAGES: VINCENT VAN GOGH, SELF PORTRAIT, 1887, RIJKSMUSEUM.NL;4&5 STANLEY LENCH © BETHLEM MUSEUM OF THE MIND4 Stanley Lench (1934–2000), Indian Woman, oil on board5 Stanley Lench, Widow with bird, oil on board40ART AND THE MINDThe Arts Society ReviewSummer 2017