Perthshire artists inspire exhibition on disability

Jun 17 2011 by Graeme Lafferty, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

Perthshire artists inspire exhibition on disability

A VOLUNTEER from Capability’s Upper Springland service in Perth was hoping his recent art exhibition could change people’s perception of disability.

Cliff Cuthbertson, who has just completed his final year of a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at the University of Dundee, made disability the theme of his recent end of year degree show at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.

Since September, Cliff has been helping out the art group at Upper Springland. His experiences of meeting and working with the disabled artists there helped inspire the collection of photographs and paintings he created for the show. Two members of the art class, Billy Moan and Jason O’Donnell, had a particular interest in the show as they volunteered to be models for some of the images which were on display.

Cliff hoped his work would encourage people to think about disability in a different way. All the images were taken from different angles and were displayed deliberately low down to be at approximate eye level for people using a wheelchair.

Capability support worker Rhona Roy, who runs the art group, said: “We really enjoyed working with Cliff over the last few months. He was a great help in the art group and we were pleased we have been able to inspire his work.”