UNIVERSITY Hospital Llandough is the new home of a very special oil painting that celebrates creativity among older people.

‘Gwanwyn’ is an oil and wax painting on canvass by Emrys Williams, inspired by the Italian early renaissance artist Botticelli.

The Gwanwyn arts festival for older people commissioned Emrys to produce the painting in 2011 to celebrate its fifth birthday.

Since then, ‘Gwanwyn’ has been on display at galleries across Wales, including the Museum of Modern Art in Machynlleth.

It has now found a new home at the University Hospital Llandough in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Emma Robinson, Age Cymru’s Arts and Creativity Development Officer, said:

“The Gwanwyn festival is a month-long event that Age Cymru holds across Wales every May with the support of Arts Council Wales and the Welsh Government.

“It is a celebration of art and creativity among older people and over the years we have commissioned works of art - including ‘Gwanwyn’, to highlight the works of older Welsh artists.

“We’re very excited to be able to show the ‘Gwanwyn’ painting at the University Hospital in Llandough as it takes art into an environment where the public wouldn’t necessarily expect to see it.”

The ‘Gwanwyn’ painting is on a long-term loan from the Gwanwyn arts festival.

It now hangs in the hospital’s main corridor, but it will soon be on display at a new art gallery in the hospital.

Simone Joslyn, Clinical Project Lead at the Cardiff & the Vale University Health Board, added:

“University Hospital Llandough recognises the benefits of the arts in health and wellbeing and its positive therapeutic impact on individuals using the hospital, on the fabric of daily life, and the Llandough Hospital community as a whole.

“Over the past couple of years we have been working in partnership with other organisations like Age Cymru to increase and improve the art on display within the hospital.

“The painting assisted us in producing an arts and health strategy which has led to the health board establishing a dedicated gallery at University Hospital Llandough.

“This is currently under construction and proposed for opening early summer next year and we believe it will further enhance the role of the arts in health and wellbeing at University Hospital Llandough.”