Jason and the Adventure of 254 at Wellcome Collection

For the Wakefield-born artist, Jason Wilsher-Mills, the events of 1980 would transform his life forever. That was the year in which, aged 11, he developed a rare autoimmune condition triggered by bout of chickenpox. Over the next five years, he would be paralysed from the neck down until the age of 16. Faced with those physical challenges, Wilsher-Mills came to create an interior universe, his imagination captivated by TV shows, comics, books and action heroes. Encouraged to develop his creative impulses over his time in hospital, the Yorkshireman had something of an epiphany, realising that, unlike his coal miner father, his future lay in being an artist.

At the press opening of his new exhibition held at the Wellcome Collection, Wilsher-Mills, a natural communicator, eloquently told his personal story and how it had given rise to the current work. Since 2016, he has been engaged in his Jason and the Argonauts series, imbuing himself and his youth group with the same heroic exploratory spirit as the legendary Greek hero he was named after.  The artist’s latest exhibition,  Jason and the Adventure of 254 is arguably his most autobiographical yet and that number is key. Wilsher-Mills explained how the dimensions of the gallery at the Wellcome Collection recalls his ward at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield.  The 1^st August 1980, 2.54pm is a time forever embedded in the artist’s memory. He has concluded that was the exact minute his devastated parents were informed – wrongly, thankfully – that their son would not pass his 16^th birthday. At that moment, however, 11-year-old Jason, unable to move in his hospital bed, was focused on the ward’s TV screen, watching British athletics legend Sebastian Coe winning the 1500m at the Moscow Olympics. Remarkably, Coe was wearing the number 254 on his vest.

That impactful minute of 44 years ago is captured in the two characteristically colourful pieces dominating the centre of the exhibition gallery. The monumental inflatable Figure in the Bed represents Wilsher-Mills’ memory of what was happening to his body. The vast figure, his feet enormously swollen in pain, can be partly illuminated via a button to capture the neurological issues causing disharmony between the artist’s brain and body. Wilsher-Mills reveals bodily organs, referencing the copies he made on anatomical drawings held at the Wellcome Collection. The artist’s expressed inspiration from the US painter, Philip Guston is to the fore here. Opposite the bed is to be found a reimagining of the Pinderfields Hospital ward’s TV set, being supported on the head of a sculpture of Sebastian Coe. Recognisable through his GB athletics kit and number 254 on his back, he points at the symbolic, bed-bound Jason who in turn points back. An army of huge green toy soldiers converges on the bed clutching viruses, alluding to an analogy a doctor made to explain Wilsher-Mills’ white cells turning on him. Humour in the face of adversity is a constant thread here.

At the start of the show, one also finds two enormous boots, Calliper Boots, again all awash with the colour Jason associates with his formative years in the 1970s when he read his beloved Beano comics and soaked up the popular culture of the era. Reminiscent of the Yellow Submarine and Monty Python, they are making light of the dreadful orthopaedic devices the artist was given to wear as a child. Here he reinvests them with positive energy, turning them into an expression of identity. Wilsher-Mills makes a passionate plea throughout his practice for the social model of disability to be fundamentally changed to enable the full range of human needs to be accommodated.

Around the edge of this immersive exhibition, the visitor finds a series of nine dioramas where three-dimensional miniature scenes, referring to significant episodes of the artist’s childhood experiences, can be illuminated by buttons. Wilsher-Mills was inspired to create them by penny arcades he remembers at Withernsea, the Yorkshire seaside resort where he and his working-class family would visit for their annual holiday. Rendered with the artist’s vibrant cartoon-like style, they are bursting with energy, love and nostalgia. One depicts the artist’s beloved mother, whose small size belied her strong personality, ever fighting for her son. She appears as a mermaid surrounded by glowing jellyfish, evoking a memory of her swimming in the North Sea at night as the creatures milled around her.

Another diorama, The Pee and the Fruit captures the occasion when the artist’s brother-in-law sneakily ate a piece of fruit from Wilsher-Mills’ hospital bowl the then bed-ridden artist had inadvertently dropped his urine sample onto. Painting with My Mouth testifies to how Jason’s hospital education transformed him into an artist. He depicts himself as a Dalek from Doctor Who painting at an easel setting into motion a lifetime adventure in art. Full of humour and rich in colour, this charming and life-affirming exhibition by Wilsher-Mills, a proud Northerner, stands as a testament to the artist’s resilience and sheer spirit.

James White

Jason and the Adventure of 254 is at Wellcome Collection from 21^st March until 12^th January 2025. For further information visit the exhibition’s website here.