Press release, October 2024:
Join local artist, Natasha Davy, as she exhibits her 140m panoramic drawing parallels between Norfolk’s eroding coastal path and her struggles with anxiety.
Her work, titled ‘Journey of a Troubled Mind’ shows mental health illnesses depicted as a journey of ebbing landscapes, metaphorically expressing the torment one goes through in life’s journey. It has taken her three years, part-time, to draw using 7 rolls of 1m x 20m paper.
The panoramic work began after a five-day well-being walk of the 100m Norfolk Coastal path, not long after the Covid lockdown. “I subconsciously saw humanistic elements of the broken landscape, metaphorically merging into unexplainable mental health issues. After the walk, I got home with my head so full of visual representations, that I recreated the huge journey on rolls of paper to emulate its significance. Working from mind to paper, using interpretation with some of my historical and geographic knowledge of the area, I combined battle sites with the mental ones we face daily.“
Natasha uses her drawing as a form of calming touch therapy, using expressive charcoals (made at home), a key colour pastel, salt, sand, seawater, spray paints, sound graphs and just her hands as the tools, all creating a personal and embodied nature to the piece. She uses rolls of paper because they simulate a journey, where the past is rolled away, like memories, and the future is the blank path ahead of us.
She hopes that the work will become a soundboard for those who have mental health issues, or for those who want to understand them better. She says “You’re not alone.
If you can’t talk or write about it, then try to draw it. It may help – it helped me.“
Join Natasha on Sunday 27th October, from 11 am to 2 pm, weather-dependent, where she will exhibit her work on the sand against the natural sea defences of the southern side of Gorleston On Sea, Norfolk (Lower Esplanade, NR31 6EZ).
Please wear suitable footwear for walking on the sand, and don’t forget the clocks go back!
To find out more, including any cancellations due to the weather, visit Natasha’s website at: www.journeyofatroubledmind.co.uk.
In the press
With kind thank yous to Lydia Halcrow.
With kind thank yous to Emma Outten, visit: Folk Features
With kind thank yous to Danielle Champ, NewsQuest.
Contact Natasha at hello@journeyofatroubledmind.co.uk for more information.
Website header image shows work from 2024. All images are subject to copyright.