· Thu, 16 Apr 2020, 14:27
Art group work
Hi there,
This is Rachel here - PPI lead for Oxfordshire. We started an art group based at Fusion Arts in East Oxford towards the end of 2019 and worked through until the recent Lockdown. This group was comprised of people with lived experience of psychosis and was led by the artist Tom Cox who runs Artscape which is based at the Warneford Hospital here in Oxford.
We worked with various mediums (pastel, paint, ink, pencils, charcoal, pen etc) over the months culminating in our group work which I have attached above. We loved exploring different techniques and sources of inspiration. The group was very relaxing and a good opportunity to flex creative muscles whilst enjoying the company of those who'd been through similar experiences.
I'm posting this picture because I am so proud of the group and what they achieved together. Many of our group members had not done art in a long time and were far from confident in their artistic abilities. It is such a vibrant, colourful celebratory piece of work that I thought it deserves a wider audience. We hope it will be on display soon. Do let us know what you think.
We will be running similar groups in the Oxfordshire area in the future so if you would like to get involved let us know so we can keep you posted.
Best wishes,
Rachel Green
· Fri, 17 Apr 2020, 22:29 · No Likes
Dear Rachel thanks for sharing this - I think it is fantastic! I absolutely love it! I love the colours and the creativity, the patterns, and the animals popping up. There are some beautiful drawings, and it all goes together so well! How did you do it? Was it done in stages over a few weeks or months or did you all try different things out and then do a final piece? It's great seeing how will it all fits together. Just a thought, but if you only post the picture itself, does it show up as a thumbnail on the forum? it would be lovely if this could somehow decorate the page but I don't know if this is possible? I hope you're all able to meet again soon, one way or another best wishes Kathy
· Thu, 23 Apr 2020, 16:23 · No Likes
Hi Kathy - thanks so much for your positive feedback. We originally met as a group in Autumn 2019 and just experimented with different mediums and inspirations for a few weeks. After the Christmas break we then turned our attention to producing something as a group. As you can see elephants were a big inspiration. One of our group happened to be really good at coming up with Mandala patterns so that became a feature of the group work. There is one in each corner of the piece. We all tried things we'd never attempted before and media we'd never used before (I explored and loved using 'Brusho') then came together to assemble one large piece. It's actually pretty big in real life - maybe 3 foot square or so at least. We hope it will be displayed once it has been finished. I could try to post the picture separately but my IT skills are not brilliant so I'm not sure how to share the picture in a different way but I could try.
