Since the age of six, Carson has occasionally experienced the sensation of maggots moving in her body. She describes her childhood as rather unhappy and attempted suicide at the age of 15. Since then, she has spent periods in psychiatric care and her treatment has included drug and electric therapies. Painting has long been important to Carson but never more so than after she became ill again in 1996 when she started hearing voices. She spontaneously began to paint faces that she subsequently recognised as fellow patients from her earlier stays in psychiatric hospitals.

 

This brought back memories. The need to capture these memories was reinforced by the urgings of the 'underlings' (spirits of dead patients), so called because they speak to her under the voices of others. Mostly they encourage her in her work, but sometimes they become frightening and destructive. At these times, she enters a local psychiatric unit until she feels able to return to painting in safety.

 

Her work was featured in the exhibition, Private Worlds - Outside and Visionary Art, at the Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham in 2001. The Welcome Trust has recently added one of her paintings to its permanent collection.

 

Inside Banstead Hospital is generously lent to the College by the Henry Boxer Gallery http://www.outsiderart.co.uk/