Making disability more visible with Arts Council support
Digital artist and painter Jason Wilsher-Mills is on an adventure – and his mission? To make disability more visible.
Hailing from Wakefield, and now based in the East Midlands, Jason studied Fine Art and specialised in traditional painting techniques, until he realised he didn’t want his disability to limit what he could create.
Jason now uses iPads to create paintings and sculptures which detail disability, his childhood memories, popular culture, social history and heritage.
Since 2012, Jason has received Arts Council support for 11 projects and worked with more than 40,000 people across the county, bringing his distinctive digital installations, workshops and pop up galleries to people of all ages. From projects in Sleaford, Lincoln and the National Centre for Craft & Design, to working with communities in Leicester and disabled groups in Hull and Corby, Jason uses technology to tell stories, bring his paintings to life and break down barriers to viewing and creating art for the wider disabled community.
In July 2019, Arts Council England awarded £78,962 of National Lottery funding to Jason’s latest project ‘The Adventures of Jason & the Argonauts’, to help him share his unique work with even more people across England.
The project will see him create art with disabled communities in Corby, Hull, Calderdale and Kirklees, and schools in Dorset. He aims to help make disability more visible, creating a permanent piece of sculpture and a Virtual Reality game to boldly and publicly depict disability.
As a disabled artist I want to work with those who are most vulnerable, and create high quality, high profile art with them
Visiting schools in Dorset and dementia groups in the Midlands, Jason has been delivering digital art workshops and collecting stories to turn into his first Virtual Reality (VR) video game. The game will feature alongside an interactive bronze sculpture at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, reflecting themes of play, disability and heritage, before being housed at Shire Hall Courthouse Museum in Dorchester. He is also creating an Augmented Reality (AR) experience and a 20-foot inflatable light-up sculpture to feature in Nottingham’s Light Night in February.
‘A positive knock-on effect’
While working on Argonauts, Jason has also been given the chance to show work in a digital art exhibition in Canberra, Australia, and been invited to create new work for Tate Modern in 2020, working with disabled children in London. Arts Council funding has also enable him to give professional work experience to Jonathan Reynolds, a young disabled artist from Kettering in Northamptonshire.
Getting Arts Council funding for Argonauts has had an unexpected and positive knock on effect. I’m really busy, and I love it
Peter Knott, Area Director for Arts Council England, said: “Jason’s work really pushes boundaries, using digital and interactive elements to bring people together as they experience his colourful sculptural work.
“We want to develop a thriving arts ecology that gives everybody the chance to enjoy and create great art – and this a fantastic example of how public funding can open doors for artists to go on to achieve huge success.”
