Heart of The Matter Exhibition

Heart of the Matter

Sketches of Royal Victoria Hospital Cardiac Unit

Peter Hutchinson

Peter Hutchinson is a Chartered Landscape Architect, Chartered Designer, illustrator, product designer and artist. He has run his own successful award winning design practice for 40 years. He has taught at Queens University in the School of Architecture as a part time lecturer before becoming a Teaching Fellow, lecturing at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, he taught design in the studio and delivered a landscape design module lecture course. He also was a part time lecturer in the University of Ulster Schools of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

He is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute LI and Fellow and Past President of the Irish Landscape Institute ILI and delivered their 25th Anniversary celebration and their biannual all Ireland landscape Design Awards. He was the ILI delegate to the International Federation of Landscape Architects IFLA Europe. He has been a past secretary, treasurer and chair of the Landscape institute Northern Ireland LINI and as a recent Co-Chair in 2015 delivered their 50th anniversary celebrations and ‘Future Spaces and Places’ conference.

He was a former member of the Boards of the Belfast Print Workshop BPW and the Ormeau Baths Gallery OBG. He is well known not only for his landscape architectural designs and illustrations which have won many awards nationally and internationally and been published in the RSUA Perspective and Living Design and the Landscape Institute Journal as well as Contact Illustrators & Association of Illustrators annual publication etc ... but also for his drawings which have been exhibited widely in Ireland and the UK…they include the Royal Ulster Academy RUA Belfast and the Royal Hibernian Academy RHA Dublin Annual exhibitions, Boyle Open Arts Festival Co Longford Ireland, London Transport Museum, the Association of Illustrators annual exhibition in London, the Engine Room and the Fenderesky Gallery both in Belfast - the latter for 20 years. He has also illustrated for the Sunday Times colour supplement and the BBC History magazine and undertaken numerous commissions to design for and in conjunction with architectural and design practices. He also exhibited with the Association of Consultant Architects ACA at their show in London at a Chelsea gallery venue, his exhibition of 16 no. A2 film collage posters created for Queens Film Theatre’s 50th Anniversary are in their archive and exhibited at the Royal Society of Ulster Architects RSUA gallery in Belfast. Finally his practice collection of landscape architecture plans, drawings, photographs and documents are going to the Irish Architectural Archive IAA Merrion Square Dublin.

He still practices as a landscape architect [though in a more relaxed and leisurely fashion!], as an illustrator, product designer and artist and writes occasional articles for professional journals…..he has no plans of retiring in the near future!!

These sketches drawn in the RVH Cardiac Unit record the time he spent in hospital awaiting heart surgery. They record the journey with images of the wards and equipment but especially the terrific staff and the work they do in caring for their patients. He made these sketches as a thank you to them - ‘we are all the benefactors and our society would be lost without them’.

This exhibition was facilitated by Arts Care, who provide opportunities for service users, healthcare staff and visitors to participate in a variety of art workshops, performances and events accessing high quality arts engagement in health and community care settings including transforming clinical environments into ‘creative cared for’ spaces. Improving personal health and wellbeing through the arts.

Thanks to the Royal Society of Ulster Architects RSUA and their Journal ‘Perspective’ where the images and text were published in an article titled ‘The Heart of the Matter’ February 2023.