Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George: Art helps to heal

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George examines the art on display at the launch of the Red House Rotunda Art Gallery’s Healing Through Art display on Wednesday. – ROGER JACOB

SPEAKER Bridgid Annisette-George on Wednesday launched an exhibition by 77 visual artists in the Red House rotunda aimed at raising awareness of mental health and providing a stream of hope via creative expression, she said in her feature address to guests and exhibitors.

She said the arts – including visual art, music, dance and drama – can help in mental health healing but were not a panacea in place of other extensive works to be done.

Artiste Shalise Thomas and her mother Lisa Duprey a the launch of the Red House Rotunda Art Gallery’s Healing Through Art exhibit on Thursday. – ROGER JACOB

Annisette-George lamented that mental ill-health was often disparaged as “he mad” or “she mad.” Further, she said the covid19 pandemic had entailed restrictions on people’s movements and had added to their sense of fear, panic, and uncertainty, thereby severely impacting their mental health. She lamented widespread social stigma and ignorance over mental ill-health.

Annisette-George warned that changes in sleep patterns and appetite, plus impulsive decision-making, and the abuse of drugs and alcohol, plus thinking suicidal thoughts – tell-tale signs of mental ill heath – may go unnoticed. It may affect work and personal relationship, and can lead to an early death, she said.

The speaker offered remedies to mental ill-health as getting a work-home balance, exercise, creative pursuits and seeking professional help. She highlighted port-post-post-partum depression as an issue.

Newsday spoke to two artists. Mellisia Rattan-Kaim explained Life’s Blessings, her picture of part of a woman’s face, next to a lotus flower and a hummingbird, all portrayed in pastel colours.

Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George discusses a piece with artist Kevin McMayo at the launce of the Red House Rotunda Art Gallery’s Healing Through Art exhibit on Wednesday. McMayo’s piece is entitled How Can I Help My Brother. – ROGER JACOB

She said the woman was holding her arm across her face to block her eyes as a way of hiding her vulnerability. She said she was the model.

The lotus represented enlightenment, while the hummingbird offered hope. Rattan-Kaim said she was a self-taught artists who had started doing art seriously only two years ago.

Marika Cameron, 17, explained her picture, Fragments of a Whole, several faces intertwined in a pattern.

Artist Marika Cameron with her piece entitled Fragments of a Whole at the Red House’s Rotunda Art Gallery on Wednesday. – ROGER JACOB

“This is a visual representation of someone overcoming so many different emotions and having so many personalities, even though it still amounts to one whole – one body, one soul, one mind.

“It doesn’t make them less of a person simply because the are experiencing so many emotions, so many feelings and so many different personalities.”

Cameron said she had done art since primary school but had stepped in up in secondary school.

“It’s always been an outlet. When it becomes a chore, it s no longer a creative expression.”

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