True Stories - Painting The Mind

The strand, which showcases the best of international feature documentaries, makes a much appreciated return to a UK production with Sarah Feltes's film which looks at the untapped artistic resources of the human brain.

In Painting the Mind we met two men who share an obsession: neither of them can stop making art. This is not because they are driven or ambitious, but because they're brain damaged. Tommy McHugh is a Scouse builder with a criminal past, then one morning he was poleaxed by two strokes. Jon Sarkin, a chiropractor from Massachusetts, suffered with a noise like a fire alarm going off between his ears for a year, until an operation to put it right caused a stroke, necessitating the removal of half his cerebellum.

Both were confused, impaired and depressed. But they also became "disinhibited" and seized by a compulsion to draw. McHugh could only do stick men at first, but his work eventually became quite accomplished. Sarkin is now a professional artist, with a dealer and everything.

What made this programme so fascinating was not just the questions it raised about where the creative impulse lies, but the way it illuminated the very purpose of art, especially the needs it satisfies in the artist. Sarkin is clear about why he does it: "My art is an agreement between my compulsions and obsessions and I."