BJP volume 228 issue 2 Cover and Front matter

Case Studies' is a 23 x 27cm oil painting of a patient who was resident at Glenside Hospital in Bristol in 1889.The hospital was then known as Bristol Lunatic Asylum.This is one in a series of portraits featuring patients of the asylum in the late 19th century.The paintings are produced from photographs which were included in the patients' admission books, now housed at Bristol Archives.These photographs offer a glimpse into the emotional states of those facing institutional confinement.Through a careful process, paint is applied in translucent layers, gradually building depth and form.Certain detail is emphasised with deliberate clarity, whilst other areas are left incomplete or dissipate into the background, demonstrating a sense of impermanence and loss.The resulting portraits act as symbolic representations of individuals who are at risk of being forgotten, save for the solitary, timeworn photograph that preserves their existence, thus emphasising the power of a single captured moment.The project highlights those on the fringes of society, challenging traditional, hierarchical assumptions about the subjects of portraiture and reconsidering whose likeness is deemed worthy of remembrance.