Blooming with colour and creativity – Artist brightens garden for Portsmouth’s children and young people
Staff at Solent NHS Trust’s Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) unit at Falcon House in Portsmouth have worked with a local artist and schoolpupils to brighten up their outdoor space for service users.
With wooden fences going up on site for the wider St James’s Hospital redevelopment, Solent’s Matron CAMHS East, Kathryn Hammond, saw an opportunity to brighten the building’s boundary. She explained: “We wanted to have a space that was relaxed and inviting for when the children and young people were outdoors. We then received internal funding through the Solent Dragons’ Den scheme which champions innovation and improvement, to approach well-known local artist, Mark Jones, aka Fark.
“At the same time, we invited pupils from Harbour School for their input on a theme for the artwork – they chose ‘Be excellent’, which we loved.
“Fark then set to work, spraying amazing colourful designs onto the panels, including his signature bird.
“The end result is brilliant and we can’t wait for our service users to fully enjoy this welcoming and vibrant space, weather permitting!”
Fark, whose graffiti designs are all over the world, admitted: “I’ve really enjoyed this project. Doing stuff with the kids, that’s always good as they come up with loads of ideas. If you can get them for 20 minutes, I’ll do an outline and they’ll fill it in. They get totally absorbed, not thinking about anything else, which is great to see.”