Ardoyne Community Pensioner Group
Title of Work: Inner Diamond
Arts Care Project Artist: Leah Davis
Art Form: Visual Art
For the Here & Now project I worked closely with Ardoyne community group, where we spent 8 sessions in total, exploring what the term ‘Inner diamond’ could mean to each of us.
I thought it would be an interesting idea for each participant to look inward and really think of what makes them a diamond. We explored this through self-portraiture, finding our inner diamond through pure expression of paint.
As a group we started off the project learning and drawing from a still life, we explored all different drawing mediums and tools, learning new skills but having so much fun doing so and a good laugh. We ventured into poetry and had written our own pieces based on the title ‘Inner Diamond’ with each poem being read with such emotion and such inspiration from the participants, this helped with our portraits in painting our own stories through portraiture. I feel like each painting speaks for itself, and reflects the strength, personality, and a true essence of the participants, it was amazing to see such pride with the finished works. Through creating we all connect with one another and through that incredible finished paintings were created, self-portraiture can be a challenging form of art, but each participant tackled it and thoroughly enjoyed the process, it’s always great to try something new.
Thank you to the amazing Ardoyne Pensioner Group for taking part in the Here & Now festival. We are delighted you have learned new skills and have really let your creative inner diamond shine through. Briege, Christine, Ellie, Lena, Maeve, Margaret, Maureen, May, Michelle, Patsy and Stella.