Here is a link to my comments on the Guardian website.

Here is a link to my blog at the Wellcome Collection.

Just a link to my book 'The Road To The Asylum', £7.07 pence on Kindle.

I posted this in reply to a thought provoking article in the Guardian. here.

Lots of artists occupy a historical half-light where they are remembered dimly.

And perhaps they are preferable. We are constantly being told about the greats. Their work is of sufficient quality and there is lots of it. It has been looked after by vast and wealthy support systems. It is presented at retrospectives where we are supposed to be in awe of its magnificence. But the so called minor obscure artists may speak to us more individually. The artists ‘lack of greatness’ may well not be entirely the artists fault. Some artists thrive in an atmosphere of support, others meet oppression. Real injection of sedatives for years, work thrown out in the street by family, whisper campaign oppression even in Britain. Cynthia Pell had to hide in the boiler room at night when she was a patient in Bexley psychiatric hospital, Liz Brown starved to death. Work is left in lofts by families who after suiciding the artist who they saw as a weak sister and outed as gay in a homophobic community, whether they were or not, and who then either hold on to it because it 'might be worth something' or bin it on the word of an envious manipulative 'friend of the family' who 'knows all about art'. How can artwork have ‘no value’? How can art be of ‘insufficient quality with no regard to the circumstances under which it is produced? That is the dark side of choosing art as a career in Britain.
Britain does lag behind Europe in the arts. But if you must have post Turner art greats then LS Lowry and Francis Bacon are of 'sufficient quality' originality and they did lots of paintings. Lowry's drawings are exceptional. But we should thank our lucky stars for the obscure minor artists whatever their ability because they work in environments that are the annexe to hell compared to the studio equipped with the finest materials money can buy and servants doing the donkey work that the greats often have.