Sitwell Café Gallery, Woodend Gallery and Studios
“Try to feel what I’m saying, to make you feel is my new expression.”
(DJ Shadow feat Nas, 2017).
Mental illness can impact anyone, anywhere, at any age. It can be experienced as a sufferer or supporting a family member or friend. As a creative practitioner, sufferer of mental health, a friend and teacher to those affected by mental illness, these experiences have provided artist Sara Nowell, an insight of the challenges surrounding mental health, and has highlighted the need to create an awareness to help action change.
The challenge of mental health on existing services including the NHS and not for profit organisations, teamed with a lack of funding may suggest that individuals and communities could look at alternative strategies to promote awareness. Can the arts increase awareness of mental illness and support wellbeing?
The artwork stories in this exhibition are informed by participatory research. Lived experiences of mental illness become the narrative behind the artwork for Mental Health Monsters, exploring depression, anxiety, bi-polar, eating disorders and suicide. Print making processes explore how to communicate feelings through colour, illustration and line application. Sara believes that the narrative over mental health requires boundaries to be broken, allowing the arts to have the power to create conversations and to insight positive change.