ART EXHIBITION | 11TH JUNE – 25TH SEPTEMBER | 11AM – 3PM | SANDHAM MEMORIAL CHAPEL | TICKETS £9 OR £4.50 FOR CHILD, £22.50 FAMILY TICKET

Front Lines, an exhibition of sketches by artist Geraint Ross Evans, explores the day-to-day life of medics and patients at a Welsh hospital during the battle against COVID-19. It opens at the National Trust’s Sandham Memorial Chapel, home to war artist Stanley Spencer’s famous series of artworks, which were created from his own experiences as a hospital orderly and a soldier during the First World War.

Almost a century after Stanley Spencer began work on this chapel to honour the soldiers of the First World War, Geraint Ross Evans was invited to Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, South Wales, to record patients and staff working on the front line of healthcare. His drawings capture a time when the hospital was dealing not only with the usual medical needs of its patients, but also the extra demands brought about by the coronavirus epidemic.

Evans was inspired by Spencer’s work on view at Sandham Memorial Chapel and has used similar pictorial techniques when creating his own complex image.

He says: “I’ve been looking to Spencer since I was in Sixth Form when we were taught about the War Artists and to me, Stanley Spencer’s work shone. His work was visionary and imaginative, far beyond reportage. I’m particularly interested in putting lots of views into a single image – which is what Spencer’s mural does so well.”