Chinanews, Nanjing, Nov. 14 – “People who suffer from mental illness are able to draw. Actually, they can draw very well,” said Guo Haiping, a contemporary artist in Nanjing.

 

Recently, Guo spent three months living with the mentally ill people at Nanjing Zu Tang Shan Psychiatric Hospital. When he was there, he taught them how to draw pictures. In three months, he collected more than 100 paintings drawn by the mentally retarded people, the Yangtze Evening News reported.

 

The paintings stun the artistic circle. This has raised a question to the normal people in society: how can we shed our prejudices against the mentally retarded people and view them from a totally new perspective?

 

Before, the mentally ill people in Nanjing had never touched painting brushes. Nor did they know any painting techniques. Now, artists have begun to speak highly of their paintings. After seeing their works, Guo Haiping said this group of people and their works should “deserve more attention from society.”

 

“In China, no one believes that they can draw paintings. We have so many prejudices against this group of people and we really don't know anything about their mysterious mental world,” Guo said.

 

At Nanjing Zu Tang Shan Psychiatric Hospital, Guo let the mentally retarded people see some paintings and gave them propylene, water color brushes, color pencils, oil chalk and clay. He told them they could do whatever they wanted with these materials. He didn't teach them how to draw. He just encouraged them to pick up some of these materials and draw something. About 100 mentally retarded inmates participated in the activity. During the three months' stay in the hospital, Guo Haiping had seen them complete more than 300 works.

 

Guo Haiping also came to know about these mentally retarded people and their mental world through the event. He had collected all the patients' paintings and made them into a book. Many works drawn by the patients will be exhibited in Beijing this month.