Sleeping and Dreaming: New Exhibition at the Bethlem Gallery opens 31 July

This week, a new exhibition of vibrant abstract paintings by Nick Farey opens at the Bethlem Gallery. Sleeping and Dreaming will start on 31 July, and continues until 23 August.

Nick has had no formal training, “however I am colourist, abstract, impressionistic and drownright cranky in my approach”. Nick has always enjoyed painting although he only began in earnest in his forties. As he put it: “The release of creative energy was prolific and the results were visually pleasing to me and hugely therapeutic.”

The exhibition's Saturday opening, on 3 August, is also one of the last chances to see Cibber's famous statues of 'Raving' and 'Melancholy Madness' before they travel Europe for almost a year. The seventeenth-century sculptures will feature in the exhibition Géricault: Images of Life and Death, opening at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt on 17 October and then the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent from February 2014. The exhibition focuses on the French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault (1791 - 1824), in particular the themes of physical and psychological suffering in his work.

In our usual free afternoon talk on 3 August, the Bethlem Archivist will explore the changing way in which these figures have been viewed over time, from receiving regular listings in eighteenth-century guides to London to being screened from view in the Victorian hospital.

Sleeping and Dreaming opens 31st July, 3 – 6pm

Exhibition continues 1st – 23rd August

Wednesday - Friday, 11am - 6pm

Gallery and museum also open Saturday 3rd August 11-5pm. Talk: The Brainless Brothers: A Biography of Cibber's Raving and Melancholy Madness will take place at 2pm.