Sian Davey portrait of Clare [1]

Portrait of Clare 1, by Siân Davey, 2020. Clare wears a white shirt, black and white floral trousers and black shoes. She sits in a wheelchair, facing forward, against a green background. This is one of two portraits of Clare Evans MBE, a campaigner for disability rights and founder of the Wiltshire Service Users’ Network.

One of a set of 33 prints commissioned for Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries from significant British photographer Siân Davey. Within one set of 12 for ‘Medicine and Treatments’, Davey photographed and supervised a series of UK individuals working with the museum, each chosen to ask a question about medical treatment. Clare was chosen to consider managing the complexities of a multi-medication regime. Versions of the portraits have been specially created for the 25-year life span of the Medicine galleries, as life-size physical portraits. These archival portrait prints of each work have been produced specially for the museum art collection by Davey.

Both sets of prints show the varied personalities of sitters. Each person is represented by two different portraits, with a variety of poses and expressions, some with props, and against background colours carefully chosen to work with the wider gallery palette. Some sitters chose to be photographed with family members, whose voices also appear in the oral histories. Some sitters appear with assistive technologies but are not defined by them. Davey’s portraits question what is a healthy or a ‘normal’ body, highlight how medicine shapes, impacts and intersects with the lives of individuals and perceptions of normality, and provoke reflection about the existing collections.