Pavel (a pseudonym) is a homeless asylum-seeker placed in Glasgow. He grew up in Ukraine and southern Russia and attended a special school for those who showed artistic promise. He had contact with the local psychiatric services in Ukraine and believed that he was subject to experimentation by them. Pavel agrees with his diagnosis of schizophrenia and finds his treatment, which includes antipsychotic medication, helpful. This picture makes reference to Carstairs State Hospital, a maximum security institution, where he was an in-patient for a period. Over the past 4 years Pavel has experienced two relapses of his illness, and arguably his paintings become less coherent and have less conventional subject matter during these periods. Pavel writes: ‘I am not interested in selling my painting. My painting is my own response to circumstances I have found myself in. I consider my paintings to be a scientific investigation into my own thinking and into my understanding of the world. For me, all philosophies and psychologies have a snowball effect: one of which I say is four dimensional. Under the old Theory of Time, these paintings I have created, for me, complete a body of work which can give others the gifts and treatments I have had’.

‘Pavel’ (b. 1976). Untitled (2004). Text by Dr Mark Taylor.