Discover the artworks by lived experience artist Janella Lewis (1943–2024). Through this exploratory exhibition you will be able to get up close to the works, handle the pieces, and share your reflections. Janella’s work represents her multiple lived worlds of mental ill-health giving insight into the power of art and world-making.

Janella Carswell Lewis Benjamin (1943-2024) was a lived experience Glasgow artist who used art to express her lived worlds. Her artwork varies in content, style and form and presents multiple worlds of experience that she often labels Ellamatta. Janella’s work is a reminder of the power of art to convey lived experiences of mental ill-health, and offers thoughtful reflection on the importance of place and relationships to our sense of safety and belonging.

After her death her family were left with the question of what to do with her art? This exploratory exhibition marks a first stage of this process of reflection. A range of discomforting challenges arise regarding how to story Janella’s life and work and these sit alongside the comforting notions of connection across experience that her artwork conveys.

By showing a selection of her work for the first time in public, we seek to gain insight into the questions and challenges involved in displaying her work and to hear thoughts and opinions on the work itself.

The exhibition runs from 9am to 5pm and you are welcome to drop in anytime throughout the day to visit the work. Members of the research team working with Janella’s art will be there to chat with you and hear your responses.