The war artist who captured a slice of city life in lockdown
The transformation of the Principality Stadium into a 1,500-bed field hospital has been one of the most remarkable developments of the pandemic. War artist Dan Peterson had access to the Dragon’s Heart hospital and has created some incredible and historic
IF someone said this time last year that there would be a field hospital on the pitch of the Principality Stadium, it would have been unbelievable.
Ysbyty Calon y Ddraig is a place that not many people have seen in person, and hopefully it will stay that way, but it will forever be a symbol of what our Welsh communities have been through over the last few months.
In order to document the life of the hospital and to raise vital funds for the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board’s Art Charity, which supports the wellbeing of patients and staff in the area, war artist Dan Peterson was given exclusive access to capture moments inside.
The special moments between nurse and patient, junior doctors on their rounds and cleaners sweeping the aisles are all captured in Dan’s illustrations.
According to Dan, there is a level of intimacy between the artist and the person being sketched that isn’t quite captured by a camera in the same way.
“Very few people object to being drawn so I think that was an important part of why I was able to capture the images I did,” explained the Cardiffbased artist.
For Dan, it was important that the sketches were not forced situations. He wanted to capture the atmosphere of the hospital in its natural state.
Having little time to sit with patients and perfect his drawings, Dan who usually paints directly with ink, decided to use pencil so he could erase mistakes and perfect the image at a later date.
This is reflected in one of the drawings of a cleaning team. He said: “I was walking down the side and I saw the cleaners coming. I quickly sketched them and took a photograph to finish it off later as that is exactly what I wanted to show. A working hospital. Timing is everything.”
Dan was amazed by the sheer amount of cleaning and sanitisation that was going on at the hospital.
“When I got up to the stands and looked down, perspective was everything, it is huge. And the hallways in the tents on the pitch are much wider. It is different to a usual hospital as everything there has been designed with Covid-19 in mind.
“It even smelt like a hospital,” Dan said, describing it as far from the usual beer smell you would find on match days.
Far from the usual rugby shirt Dan has worn before when visiting the stadium, he dressed up in scrubs for the days he was there.
“It is very different from going in the stadium, it felt a bit eerie to be honest being in an enormous place with no one around, it was very quiet.”
While at the hospital, Dan witnessed heartwarming moments between the medical staff and patients.
He explained that most of the patients were elderly and all were in recovery so no longer carried the virus.
A room was set up in the tents on the pitch for patients to eat their lunch and watch a bit of TV, as a witness to this,
Dan said it increased their spirits immensely.
Dan is used to being in situations the public rarely get to see. As a war artist, he has been on multiple trips around the world, witnessing extraordinary moments in history.
His first trip away was with The Welsh Cavalry, where he spent a little time documenting life in a field hospital in Afghanistan in 2011. Some years after that trip, Dan spent time with the Navy on a ship just off the coast of Libya.
The ship was part of Operation Weald in 2015, a migrant rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea.
In 2018, Dan witnessed one of the most horrific humanitarian crises in modern day history while in Bangladesh with the British Council. There he visited a refugee camp made up of over one million Rohingya muslims forced to flee Myanmar.
“It was a completely different experience, the situation there is dire,” he said.
Dan told a story about one young boy he met who opened up to him while he was drawing.
The child had witnessed his parents burn to death in front of him before he was forced to flee with strangers. He said that is just one of many devastating stories he heard.
With a military history himself, 52-year-old Dan was a TA in the 266 Parachute Battery for 14 years before he studied art at university, where he combined his passion for the two.
Not wanting to use the word war, Dan said there are similarities on the medical frontline as the military.
“It is the experience of the people who are working there and going through that, but the difference with our medics is they are worrying about bringing that risk home with them every day.”
The project was set up by Simone Jocelyn, the head of the Arts and Health Charity, and 50% of the profits from the sales of art work will go towards the fund.
Simone said: “Dan’s visual documentation of the experiences of everyone involved at Ysbyty Calon y Ddraig Dragon’s Heart Hospital has beautifully captured this unique time in the health board’s history.
“For many years to come, his images will be a powerful reminder of how we worked with partners to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and transformed the Principality Stadium into a field hospital in just a couple of weeks.”
■ To purchase one of the illustrations, visit https://dan-peterson-artshop.myshopify.com/collections/ dragons-heart-hospital