Vanessa Holmes
Midnight Visitor by Richard Bawden

In the next instalment of our Twenty for Twenty series, we ask Vanessa Holmes, the Associate Director for Charity at Milton Keynes Hospital to select an artwork from the Milton Keynes University Hospital Art Collection.

Which work in The Collection have you chosen to talk about?

The etching ‘Midnight Visitor’ by Richard Bawden.

When and how did you first see it?

I’m a member of Team MKUH, I was the hospital’s first fundraiser back in 2011 and now manage Milton Keynes Hospital Charity as well as oversee the hospital volunteering team.

‘Midnight Visitor’ first caught my eye many years ago. I was just walking along the corridor on my way to a meeting, and there it was. There are some pieces of art in the collection that do just that. They catch you off guard because they speak to you; you see something reflected in the painting that makes you think or perhaps it just appeals to you. Now I pass it every day on my walk to the office and it just makes me smile.


What first interested or attracted you to this artwork?

As someone who has owned and loved cats my whole life, I know they have this enigmatic look about them – you’re not quite sure if they’re about to cosy up on your lap or scratch your face – and the artist has captured that look in this painting. It’s a familiar and comforting image of a cat weaving around a human’s feet and one I’m all too familiar with at home. And that’s what attracted me to the painting – it’s a reminder, whilst in hospital, that home isn’t far away.


Do you remember how seeing this work made you feel?

Content. Comforted I suppose, because it brought that familiarity into the hospital environment. I’ll give it a smile as I walk past sometimes. Looking at a painting can be a real sensory experience– I can imagine the cool feeling of the tiles on the human’s bare feet; the soft fur brushing against their legs; the shadows of the cat’s whiskers suggest there could be some morning sun coming through a window.  And there you have it. Just a few minutes and you’re taken to another place. It’s great; art is powerful when it does that.


In general, what kind of impact do you think seeing art at MKUH has on your experience of being on the hospital site?

The artwork in the hospital turns a blank space into something beautiful. You might not spend more than a few seconds looking at it, but you acknowledge it’s there and that the hospital cares about the environment.

In my role at MKUH I manage Milton Keynes Hospital Charity – donations given to the hospital’s charity help care for the artwork via Arts for Health MK - so I have perhaps a greater awareness than others in the hospital building. There are other paintings I like to linger on when I pass -the Boyd & Evans, the Sharon Paulger paintings near Oak House, Penny Mitchell’s autobiographical photo exhibition.

I hope that if I feel that calm when I see artwork from the hospital collection, that others feel that way too- and I know through feedback that they clearly do – whether they are colleagues, patients or family members.


Contributors: Vanessa Holmes
Vanessa Holmes has worked in the charity sector for more than 25 years, starting her role as the first fundraiser for Milton Keynes University Hospital in 2011. She is currently responsible for charitable giving and volunteering at the hospital. Vanessa is passionate about enhancing patient and family experience, and believes art is one of the many ways we can achieve this; that art in hospital creates better health outcomes for people in hospital.