Portraits of Care
For over 25 years, Scottish-born artist Mark Gilbert has dedicated his artistic practice to exploring the experience of patients and caregivers through portraiture. These portraits inform the viewer’s discernment of ethical and aesthetic values at play in health care and foster deeper and fuller understanding of patients’ and caregivers’ vulnerabilities and well-being. As works of art, the portraits enhance greater awareness of the challenges and rewards of attending to the humanistic aspects of care. More recently, Mark’s life as an artist was reaffirmed by artworks created by his late father, Norman Gilbert, of Mark’s mother as she lived with and lay dying of a dementia-related illness. Some of Norman’s works are also in this exhibition, alongside narratives by Mark.
Vulnerability
The act of creating a portrait relies on the relationship between portrayer and portrayed, which is based in part on the vulnerability of both parties. By facing these vulnerabilities head on—and tapping into them in a process of creation—both artist and sitter are able to diminish the discomfort and fears that they could otherwise feel. This vulnerability can be seen as elevating the portraits beyond the instrumental, illustrative, and descriptive by fostering an emotional connection.
Building Therapeutic Relationships
When we look at a portrait, we are not only looking at a picture of an individual; we are looking at a picture of someone being looked at. As such, a portrait is a testament to an interaction between artist and sitter. The relationship between artist and sitter that is critical to the creation of each portrait has parallels to that between patient and caregiver—a relationship that requires engagement with uncertainty, reflecting and listening with openness and curiosity, and interpersonal trust. Trust is essential in enabling the more silent and intimate process of portrait making to flow with purpose.
Seeing and Being Seen
Mark recognizes that his voice is integral to creating portraits but is always mindful that his voice as the artist does not overpower the voice of the sitter. He has to look deeply and rely on participants’ voices, both silent and spoken, to inform his artistic process. Many of Mark’s sitters regard their resultant portrait as arising from their collaborative relationship with Mark, recognizing that their energy and presence guides Mark’s strokes on the canvas.
Power of Portraiture
About the Artist
As an artist, teacher, and researcher, Dr Mark Gilbert’s work in clinical, studio, and domestic settings has enriched and expanded traditional conceptions of portraiture. He has led many arts-based research projects using portraiture to illuminate patient and caregiver experience of illness, recovery, and care. His 5 major bodies of work—spanning dementia to seizures to head and neck cancers—have been exhibited in galleries and museums in the United Kingdom and North America. Dr Gilbert’s work in clinical portraiture continues to innovate and evolve at the intersections of ethics, art, and health care.
Dr Gilbert graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1991 and earned his PhD from the Medical Sciences Interdepartmental Area Program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr Gilbert is currently an associate professor in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he is also a participating faculty member in the University’s Medical Humanities Program.