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Audio Description

Commissioned for Creative Folkestone Triennial 2021, Jason’s witty burlesque work combines child-like comedy with disabled grit, a response to first becoming disabled over the course of puberty, during which he was expected to die young and was subjected to humiliating and patronising treatment from doctors and carers.

About Jason Wilsher-Mills

Jason trained as a traditional oil painter in the early 1990s, but drifted into teaching & education management and away from being an artist. Then in 2004 his life changed when his disability changed and he was unable to continue working due to access issues, it was at this time that an artist friend pointed out that he should do the thing he was trained to do: ’You are an artist Jason!’  Jason’s crip aesthetics are also inflected by his working class past, saucy seaside characters, and the trauma of disabled childhoods. So, for example, characters such as the Folkestone Argonaut are modelled in their underpants, but also burst with vibrant colours and hidden designs that express a joy and pride in disability and difference.  His landmark pieces Folkestone Argonaut and Rhubarb Totem both feature in the show, both inside and outside the CREA gallery.

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Image credit, Andy Barker

Image descriptions:

Banner image. Close up photo of a fibreglass sculpture by Jason Wilsher-Mills titled 'I Am Argonaut'. A figure, towering over people in the gallery, is decorated in detailed designs and illustrations, delving deeper into the context of the work. Painted in pinks, blues, reds the multicoloured sculpture is a mixture of the uncanny and the familiar, creating a narrative to explore across the body of the sculpture. In the background are brightly coloured paintings covering the wall to the right.

1. Installed in a gallery space, is a fibreglass figure, towering over people in the gallery, is decorated in detailed designs and illustrations, delving deeper into the context of the work. Painted in pinks, blues, reds the multicoloured sculpture is a mixture of the uncanny and the familiar, creating a narrative to explore across the body of the sculpture. Writings fill the work, with references to dates and moments in the artists' life. In the background are brightly coloured paintings covering the wall to the right, with a large purple neon artwork hanging on the left wall. The sculpture is raised on a short bright red plinth.

2. Installed in a gallery space, is a fibreglass figure, towering over people in the gallery, is decorated in detailed designs and illustrations, delving deeper into the context of the work. A person dressed in all black leans down to look closer at a section of the sculpture, obscuring their face from the camera. In the background are two large scale black and white drawings of groups of people. The sculpture is raised on a short bright red plinth.

3. Installed in a gallery space, is a fibreglass figure, towering over people in the gallery, and decorated in detailed designs and illustrations, delving deeper into the context of the work. Painted in pinks, blues, reds the multicoloured sculpture is a mixture of the uncanny and the familiar, creating a narrative to explore across the body of the sculpture. The two sides of the artwork are different. The left, in deep reds and repetitive lines, similar to muscle fibre and technical biologoy drawings of bodies. The right, in pale pinks, purples and yellows, depicts a playful response and an 'outer shell' of the figure.