It is with deepest sadness that Talk About Art announces the death of its founder Sir Ian Mills on Sunday 6th March 2022.

He was a tireless philanthropist and his kindness and generosity will live on through the work of Talk About Art

Sir Ian Mills opening the first Talk About Art exhibition, Talk About… Pre-Raphaelites in St Margaret’s Church, Lee in 2015

In 2015 Ian had a vision. His vision was based on his genuine concern that young people in Lewisham were not being given sufficient opportunity to engage with the visual arts and take advantage of the many benefits (social, cognitive and creative) this brings.

He wanted to take projects into schools introducing pupils to established art movements or genres over several sessions and then use the young people’s creative responses as part of a public exhibition.

The first project Talk About…Pre-Raphaelites was run with St Matthew’s Academy. The exhibition ran for six weeks in St Margaret’s Church, Lee and a further four weeks at Deptford Lounge.

Since then we have grown as a charity. We have run a further six projects with multiple schools in Lewisham and Greenwich. The most recent being the highly successful Talk About Art and Our Environment. Run several Summer art clubs for 12-16s. Run projects for Lewisham Virtual School’s Hospital Outreach Programme, run A Celebration of Young Artists in Lockdown which became a published book and run an online art club for young people looking for emotional wellbeing support.

This year we are proud to be opening Studio Reboot an approved Lewisham Alternative Provision. The studio will be hosted at The Dumps from 9.30 – 3.30 on a Friday, 39 weeks a year and is aimed at giving young people who are excluded from mainstream education, at risk of exclusion or are struggling to engage with mainstream education the opportunity to reboot their lives through engagement with the visual arts.

It was Ian’s fervent wish that Talk About Art developed a facility for these young people who can so easily “drop off the radar” and find themselves on a challenging and potentially destructive life path.

Thanks to Ian’s vision and generosity Talk About Art will continue to provide stimulating visual arts engagement for the young people of Lewisham and South East London.