Colour and monochrome go hand in hand at Atkins

ARTISTS Penny Andrews and Colin Ward showcased their exhibition Colour in a Monochrome World at The Atkins Gallery in Hinckley.

The duo have two different views on art and the exhibition, which runs until January 2, is a fusion of the two with monochrome canvases and bursts of multi-coloured sculptures.

The exhibition is one of many projects Penny and Colin have worked on together since meeting in 2005 while studying for a masters degree in Fine Art at De Monfort University.

Working in the mental health sector for 17 years and training as an art psychotherapist, Penny said ‘art reaches a place that other therapies can’t’.

She added: “Art is a real subconscious thing. When you’re creating something, the meaning comes to you as you do it.”

One of Penny’s pieces in the gallery is called Boxed In. It is a collection of embroidered felt flowers, trapped in an acrylic box.

She says it represents her own story as a child feeling humiliated and oppressed, as the artist emotionally recollects.

She said: “I was making a collage at school and clearly what I was making wasn’t what the teacher wanted- she just yelled at me at the top of her voice.

“[Afterwards] my friend helped me make a sunflower with all the same shaped petalseven now, 50 years later, it still gets to me.

“From then on, I felt like could never be my true self”.

The gallery serves as an awareness campaign for mental health, capturing an array of human emotions.

Other pieces include Smothered which is a sculpture of colourful copper wires, engulfed by a dark cocoon. This represents how depression and anxiety can take over your life.

Penny’s experience teaching children with social, emotional and behavioural issues and how they become represented by just their bad behaviour has been an inspiration.

Speaking about the exhibition, Colin said “People are symbiotic, people are crucial to the happenings that influence everyone else.”

IHis painting Elizabeth Dosing On Sofa With Guitar is a monochrome piece analysing each detail of the women’s posture through harsh, dark paint strokes on a vacant canvas.

Colin explains: “An artist’s point of view is a reportage, a translation of what one sees.

“Penny and I find it easy to incorporate our work together as we are working with human aspects, so the work may end up different, but its the same ingredients that drives the artwork.”

The Colour in a Monochrome World exhibition is at the Atkins Gallery until January 2 from 10am to 2pm, free admission.

Visit the Atkins Building website for more information on the exhibition: http://www.atkinsbuilding.co.uk/tenants/list/cat-