When artists talk about tackling difficult subjects, they generally mean something technically tricky, such as group scenes; something political like climate change; or a horrifying but dramatic theme like war.
Graham Miller chose the deeply unglamorous subject of mental health, creating a series of compelling portraits of society’s most vulnerable.
He told Jack McKeown about challenging the stigma associated with mental illness.
One of the few black and white pictures in Graham Miller’s exhibition shows day-patient Davie in the Walled Garden at Perth’s Murray Royal hospital.
Honesty is Graham’s first exhibition and came about quite by accident.
“I volunteer as a Samaritan, and did a trek in Vietnam to raise funds for the charity.
“A lady who lives near me in Bankfoot, Lesley Young, runs the caf at the garden.
“She sponsored my trek and said I should pop down and have a look around.
“So I did, and I’ve been going back ever since. It’s a beautiful place, really tranquil and well cared for.
“I’ve been going down every 10 days or two weeks and spending an hour or so talking to the guys there and taking some pictures.”
The Walled Garden is based at Pitcullen House, in the grounds of Murray Royal Hospital, and is partly staffed by people with mental health problems.
Working alongside the hospital’s salaried staff, the day-patients tend to the garden all year round.
As well as being therapeutic, the routine of work helps prepare the patients for a return to employment.
The garden has a caf and sells hanging herbs, heathers, fruit and vegetables that have been grown there.
After a year of regular visits, Graham had amassed a collection of portraits of the garden’s colourful characters.
“Kirsty Duncan, the arts coordinator for Perth and Kinross Council, put me in touch with the Birnam Institute and they offered me space to put on an exhibition,” he continues.
Honesty is at the Birnam Centre until August 3. It will then form part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival, which runs throughout Scotland in October.
“I’m working with the organisers of that to try and find someone high profile who has suffered from mental health issues in the past and is willing to talk publicly about it.
“Stephen Fry has done so, and we’re looking for someone famous from Scotland who can step up and tell people about the difficulties they’ve had.
“It needs someone like that to stand up and be brave before attitudes start to change.”
Over the past year, Graham has become friendly with the collection of colourful characters who tend the Walled Garden.
Squatting down on his hunkers, the dog end of a roll-up cigarette between his lips and a hoe loosely resting against his side, he looks contemplative and content.
“People think I posed that shot,” says Graham. “But I was just walking through with my camera and I saw him like that and took the picture.”
Davie is one of around 40 mental health patient volunteers whose work has made the landscaped garden one of Perth’s top outdoor attractions.
Over the past year, their daily labours have been captured by Graham and now form an exhibition highlighting the issue of mental health.
The Most Important People in the World: Honesty, has opened at Birnam Arts & Conference Centre in Dunkeld.
Originally from Glasgow, Graham (48) now lives in Bankfoot, near Perth.
Married with two daughters, he works from home for Connecticut company A2 Technologies.
Photography has been a passion of his since he was a child.
Though, like most photographers, he works almost entirely in digital these days, he still enjoys the occasional nostalgic foray into film.
“I bought a second-hand enlarger and my plan is to get the guys at the garden to take pictures and do some processing down there,” he explains.
“There’s a cabin I could turn into a darkroom. It’s a lovely thing to see the pictures developing, faces and shapes emerging, the smell of the chemicals.”
“Their illnesses range from the very serious, like schizophrenia, to the less dramatic but still debilitating stuff like depression.
“I see them in town when I’m with my wife and family and I smile and say ‘hello’,” he says.
“Everyone else gives them a wide berth. It’s such a shame.
“The more people behave like that towards them the more they feel that’s the way they deserve to be treated.
“I do think it’s only people who don’t know anyone who has been affected by stress or depression that still treat people this way.
“If you’re not connected to someone with mental illness you think, well it’s not as bad as a physical illness is it?
“The reality is that it can be worse, because at least a physical illness is visible. A mental illness can affect you more precisely because it is invisible.”
The silver lining of their condition, Graham reckons, is a level of self-awareness other people don’t have.
“Having a mental illness makes you examine yourself more than other people do, and working alongside fellow sufferers helps because they know they’re not alone.
“The guys know each other and themselves really well.
“It’s lovely to watch how well they work together. The way the world is at the moment, all the financial crap that’s going on, everything is about looking after number one. That’s what makes these guys so refreshing.”
Society does naturally shy away from people with mental health difficulties, but Graham has many fond memories of his time with the workers of the Walled Garden.
“They’ve got a brilliant sense of humour. It took me a while to gain their acceptance, but eventually they starting giving me a bit of good natured ribbing and that’s when I knew I was making progress.
“There’s a guy called Cully, who’s pictured wearing a cowboy hat. I always ask if he’s okay and he always says he wouldn’t be here if he was okay.
“Another guy is called Bill he’s in a close-up with the coloured mosaic behind him. Bill has difficulty speaking and consequently doesn’t say much to people.
“So we’d never talked much, but one day he just turned to me and formed a clenched fist which he held against his chest.
“He looked at me and said, ‘It takes a special kind of heart’. That moment has stayed with me.”
The Most Important People in the World: Honesty, is at the Birnam Arts Centre in Dunkeld until August 3. Entry is free and the exhibition is open from 10am.
For more information visit www.birnaminstitute.com or call 01350 727 674.