Meet 3 London visual artists looking to channel healing and vibrancy through colours
19 artists took part in the London Artists' Studio Tour over the weekend
Londoners got an opportunity to connect with local artists and tour their personal studios as part of the London Artists' Studio Tour over the weekend.
The three-day self-guided tour, scattered across the city allowed art enthusiasts to explore different art forms, such as oil, acrylic, mixed media, clay, coloured pencil, and more.
The annual tour started 30 years ago by a group of small practicing artists who wanted to showcase their talents in their own creative spaces. Nineteen artists took part in the tour this year.
CBC London toured the studios of three artists where they shared what their work represents to them.
Art as a form of therapy
Hailey Tallman is an art therapist whose paintings emphasize creativity and intuition as opposed to what the final products turn out to be.
"It's a form of psychotherapy and instead of just using your words to work through processing grief or past trauma, you can use art," Tallman said. "Visual art can allow you to explore and get insight to really find out what's going on in your unconscious mind."
Tallman created a process called "Paint Your Inner Voice" in which her clients paint intuitively, and then journal about what their piece symbolizes to them.
Tallman says art therapy is becoming very popular, especially among kids and teenagers, but she believes it benefits everybody because art can access different parts of the brain, she said
"It's great for people who were maybe drawn to art as a child but shut down their creativity because they stopped feeling like they could express themselves in that way, especially if talk therapy hasn't been that effective," she said.
Solving world problems through art
Olukayode (Kay) Ojo gravitated toward art before he even started pre-school. The Nigeria-born artist, now in London, says he started painting at the age of two and has kept at it for more than 30 years.
Ojo's area of focus is abstract impressionism, in which subjects are painted with varying measures of abstraction, and convey emotions through fluent strokes of pure shades. He likes to reflect his African roots through his pieces and says his greatest motivation comes from a desire to use art as a way of solving the world's problems.
He welcomed more than 200 visitors to his studio, which has been a really positive experience for him, he said.
"I love to see expressions of joy and a smile on people's faces when they see my work and react to it."
Fabricated landscapes
At first glance, Chris Allaway's pieces may look like paintings of the outdoors, but people are often pleasantly surprised when they come closer and find out that it's all made with fabric, she said.
"Most people are genuinely surprised because once they get close, they can see the stitches and [they] like the depth and tactile look," she said.
Allaway taught herself how to quilt and work with fabrics, which brought her to designing landscape art that she's been doing for about a decade. Allaway's landscapes are inspired by her love for nature and the outdoors, she said.
"I like the outdoors because it's so beautiful and relaxing. I love the colours out there and it just draws me to work with it."
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