Artwork provides some light relief
Exhibitions of paintings and other artwork are planned to brighten up a doctors’ waiting room.
The displays will take place in the waiting room at Southwell Medical Centre on The Ropewalk.
They are being organised by Southwell Medical Users Group and Southwell Artspace.
The chairman of the users group, Mr Tony Morris, said the medical centre was the ideal place for an art exhibition.
He said: “We thought it would be good to use the facility at the surgery and involve the community.
“The surgery is the perfect setting to display the pictures because there is a lot of space and lots of people will see the work who might not normally go to a gallery or exhibition.
“We have got a programme arranged with Artspace so every two months we will have a new exhibition of work.
“The intention is to use local artists because they are part of the community and some of the artists are patients at the surgery.”
Mr Morris said the paintings were proving popular with patients and staff.
He said: “If you looked at it from a medical point of view, there might me a small element of therapy involved.
“People looking at beautiful artwork might relax more or find their mood has improved.”
The first exhibition to take place is work by professional artist Mrs Susan Isaac, of Main Street, Upton.
Her paintings were put on display on February 22 and will remain in place until April 22.
Mrs Isaac is displaying 12 paintings of different areas of Cornwall.
She chose to paint in Cornwall because she was interested in the way the sun lit the landscape in different areas of the country.
Mrs Isaac said: “I had done a lot of work in the Whitby area and then I went to paint at the other extreme, at the other end of the country.
“I am inspired by the light down there.”
The paintings on display are for sale, with a percentage of the profits from sales going to the medical users group.
A member of Southwell Medical Users Group, Mrs Gillian Ramsey, who helped organise the event, said she hoped to display photography or textile work as well as paintings.
She hopes the next artist to exhibit at the medical centre would be the photographer Mr Declan Joyce of Kirklington.
She said: “There is nothing definite as yet but we will be asking Declan Joyce if he wants to exhibit after the present exhibition, or at some point in the future.
“We hope to get lots of local artists with lots of different types of artwork, for example textile work or pottery, to exhibit at the medical centre.”
