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The world's biggest art gallery sprung to life earlier this year, the brainchild of volunteer Michael Wong, inspired by the artists he met at St Mungo's. He describes it here:

Creating artworks (painting, drawing, sketching, photography, sculpturing, craft making etc) is one of the many activities that homeless people or those who are socially excluded are encouraged to actively partake of to help boost self-esteem, confidence and self-worth. It is also therapeutic in that it acts as an outlet to channel their feelings, frustrations, anger, but also hope and optimism for the future.

Hence, Cafe Art's concept is SIMPLE!

We help bring the creativity and talent of these individuals to a wider audience. In this way, they know that they are not alone in their personal path to recovery as the public can admire and celebrate their achievements together with them.

By doing so, it should also help encourage them to engage in other activities through a sense of personal satisfaction and self-accomplishment. The more active they are in developing new skills, the quicker they will be on their journey to independence, and integrate back into the community.

To help achieve this, Cafe Art is hoping to open London's biggest and best, free public art gallery for homeless people. This will provide an outlet for the many great artworks created by them, and at the same time, offer a comfortable environment where they can be exhibited, viewed, appreciated & enjoyed, free of charge, by the general public. This will also help raise further public awareness & empathy towards the plight of homelessness in London.

Instead of utilising a single exhibition venue limited to one London site for a limited period, this 'art gallery' will be made up of a network of participating cafes located across the city. Cafes have wall spaces that are hardly used, providing an opportunity to decorate them with these amazing and wonderful artworks. 365 days a year!

At Cafe Art, we understand that money is a necessity in today's modern life. But we want to show that some things in life can be achieved without it. Like them, we do like the occasional praise, pat on the shoulder or a 'Jolly, well done!'. So this initiaitve does not receive any donations or public fundings/grants. Instead, we prefer you to give your comments of encouragement/praise to these deserving artists - that would truly make their day!

Help join us then to celebrate their talent and creativity in this unique and positive way by visiting the Cafes, this website, giving your feedback and spreading the news!

Cafe Art was conceived with passion, energy, imagination and optimism, over a cup of coffee, in 2012.