Tucked into the leafy grounds of Gartnavel Royal Hospital, a quiet, generous exhibition is inviting Glasgow to slow down and look at nature through someone else's eyes.

The Gartnavel Royal Summer House Residency brings together artists from Project Ability and inpatients at the hospital, all responding to the same prompt: comfort and disturbance in the natural world. The result is a warm, eclectic show of paintings, drawings and prints inspired by the wildlife, flowers and gardens that surround the West End site.

It is on now at the Art in the Gart Gallery, on the ground floor of The Hub at Gartnavel Royal, and runs daily from 10am to 5pm until 1 October 2026. Admission is free.

A walking group, a summer house and a year of looking

The exhibition grew out of repeated visits by Project Ability's walking group to the Gartnavel summer house and gardens. Artists sketched outdoors when the weather allowed and carried ideas back to the studio, while inpatients worked alongside Project Ability tutor Meredith in regular sessions at the hospital.

That mix of voices is the point. Featured artists include Martha Bose, MT Clements, Cathy Dowling, Stuart Low, Sian Mather, Simon McAuley, Ruth Mutch, Emma Shearer and Brian Skillen — sitting on the walls beside work made by patients during their stay. Subjects range from field mice and downy roses to peonies, lilies and close studies of the Botanic Gardens just over the wall.

Each artist took their own route into the brief. Some leaned into the comfort of nature — its colours, its small creatures, its rhythms. Others looked at the disturbance side of the equation: weather, decay, the things that bite or sting. Together the work makes a strong case for time spent outside as something genuinely restorative.

Part of a 20-year-old festival

The show is one strand of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF), which marks its 20th year in 2026 with a main programme running from 19 October to 8 November. The festival's theme this year — comfort and disturb — is the thread the Gartnavel artists picked up and ran with.

Project Ability and Art in the Gart have collaborated for several years, with the Glasgow charity's tutors running regular workshops at the hospital and staging an annual show on site. In notes accompanying the residency, Project Ability said it was "delighted" to celebrate that long-running relationship through SMHAF, adding that there is "joy in seeing the work on display within the hospital, for others to enjoy".

There is also a Project Ability short film — an experimental documentary made by members of its ReConnect programme — screening as part of the festival at the CCA later in the year.

If you want to go

  • What: Gartnavel Royal Summer House Residency
  • Where: Art in the Gart Gallery, Ground Floor, The Hub, Gartnavel Royal Hospital, 1055 Great Western Road, Glasgow G12 0XH
  • When: Until 1 October 2026, Monday to Sunday, 10am–5pm
  • Cost: Free
  • Getting there: Hyndland train station is roughly seven minutes' walk away
  • Access: The gallery is wheelchair accessible
  • Groups of 10+: Email exhibitions@project-ability.co.uk to arrange a visit

It is the kind of show worth going out of your way for — small in scale, big in heart, and a reminder of how much good can come from a hospital, a garden and a group of people willing to share what they see.