Not

For Mental Health Awareness Week (9-15 May) and Creativity & Wellbeing Week (16-22 May) we invite you to send us notes to inspire, comfort and connect. These ‘nots’ will be displayed in our Dwell Time Central window in Huddersfield for passers-by to view. What would you say to a stranger? Or your former self? Or the world at large? Lines of poetry, positive affirmations, haiku or random thoughts from 3am – everything is eligible as long as it doesn’t contain any hate speech against anyone and because it is on public display we will need to censor profanity. This year’s Mental Health Awareness week is all about Loneliness and Creativity & Wellbeing Week is titled “Get Creative Get Outdoors” for inspiration but contributions do not need to relate directly to these themes. All notations relating to mental wellbeing are welcome.

Email to: avavprojects@yahoo.co.uk
Join us on Friday 13th May 12-4pm at Dwell Time Central for a workshop of the same theme.

www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week
creativityandwellbeing.org.uk

Isolation III, Isolation V by Ruth Wallace

Two pieces from a series of works made during lockdown which focused on a growing sense of strangeness and isolation, not only from family and friends, but also from everyday life and everything that constituted normality. Having to wear masks felt like a metaphor for the stifling feeling of a world which seemed to be shrinking and closing in.

My work explores themes of memory, absence and female identity. I am interested in the traces of people which still resonate when the people themselves have gone. My figures often blend into their background, or are partially obscured or cut through by it, as I explore the borderland between absence and presence and the idea of walls holding stories and ghosts within them.

Since the pandemic, the feeling of being absent from normal, everyday life has led to a series of isolated, masked figures, separated from their surroundings, and to an increased blurring in the dichotomy between absence and presence. These pieces are made with mixed media, including inks, acrylics and burning with a soldering iron.

www.ruthwallace.co.uk

@ruth_wallace_artist

This Is Life Now 2020-202? by Steven Ward

This is my classification as clinically extremely vulnerable, this is my self-isolation, this is my loneliness, this is my recent diagnosis of PTSD. This is me waiting for the world to start again, when the world has started again without me.

Oil on Canvas

https://www.stevenward.art/

Isolated Lives by Süreyya Özgün

During the Covid 19 epidemic, people in different geographies of the world experienced similar problems. In this epidemic process we are still in, we have been faced with the restrictive and imprisoning aspects of many applications of technology that make life easier. In the modern age where human is objectified, technology has caused us to reconsider the limits of freedom and even the definition. At this point, this work deals with the individual freedoms and social limitations of people through the epidemic. It deals with labeling, numbering and seeing people as ordinary objects. In the study, the figures are positioned in the center and limited by a barcode. It is aimed to emphasize with figures depicted with their backs turned, that everyone is equal during the epidemic, all statuses are equalized without distinction between rich-poor, beautiful-ugly. The vertical columns represent the barcodes that we see on any product and indicate the identity of that product. The red line that cuts the columns that frame the figures vertically represents the obstacles that come between us and life during the epidemic process.

https://www.behance.net/qilingart

The Devil Inside Me by Amy Vallance

I chose soft materials like acrylic wool, which within society relates to comfort, warmth and safety, but for myself these materials create a sense of claustrophobia and entrapment through the way the material creates an environment of heat that makes me unable to breathe. By creating a large tangled mass of this material, it creates a feeling of intimidation and fear, but to counter-act this the material is soft and comforting which usually within society is connected with safety and comfort. Adding coloured lighting to the space changes the colours within the wool, adding to this sense of confusion and confliction which can be felt when suffering from anxiety. With each installation I select the space based on its cavernous feeling,

Within my practice I focus on self-reflection, using emotions to influence my decision making. A lot of these influences are linked to my battles with mental health, I choose to follow this route because I feel that these past experiences have shaped who I am today. When developing a new site-specific immersive installation, my practice, attends to the form and is heavily influenced by colour and its sculptural form, scale and material production. I am consciously drawn to bright colours and artificial lights which makes choosing my colour pallet and material come naturally to me. I chose to use the colours and lights through an intuitive feeling, each colour is chosen through how they make me feel when I view them.

This is a methodological approach that I use to create instillations at a scale so that the viewer can physically enter inside them to feel they are a part of the instillation. This helps me to create an immersive experience, from which the viewer can feel physically involved and connected to the instillation. By doing this is helps increase the sense of chaos and confusion which in turn, enhances a desired feeling for the public to feel the effects of anxiety. it is important that I do this in my work because, engaging the audience into this experience increases their understanding of mental health

Amyvallanceartist.com

Colours of consciousness by Tincy Patel

It was interesting, because it was just something that was flowing and I couldn’t make sense of it at first, I just was unable to stop, however I noticed certain movements and direction in the paintings either flowing upwards or in circular motion, at the time in my life I had a lot of new opportunities coming my way from work to moving to a dream place. I felt a connection to the colours too which were mostly warm and gave me a sense of fire within me that had some kind of cycle to complete some sort of 360 coming full circle… At that moment realising the golden ring and Circular motions indicating a deeper undercurrent of healing past trauma, and finally reaching to a place knowing.

My work reflects the experiences of studies in nature using photography and painting. My approach is through a sensory response emerging from a series of nature walks in and around intimate landscapes. At the core of the work is an immersion into nature and a mindfulness approach which informs both my practice and workshops that I lead.

My methodology is experimental however I mostly take to paintings and digital photography.

I have a diverse range of styles from abstract, to animation/graphics. I work digitally,with acrylics along with found objects. My curious nature keeps me from committing to a particular style or medium.

My work takes me on a journey from the time I capture a moment in nature to digitally manipulating
The image.The element of surprise keeps me in a state of anticipation never knowing how the piece will evolve.

Colours captivate me in particular colours in nature which seem to transport to my abstract paintings.
A lot of my wonder lays in the movement in nature
Be it leaves rustling or the sky in motion.
A sensory experience which I take home and make sense of in my own language.

https://outsidein.org.uk/galleries/tincy-patel/