Well, not too bad, considering. I mean it’s January, I’ve developed a sudden aversion to the colour orange, and numerous other anti feelin’-good things are hanging around like bad smells….but I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here to talk about a current collaboration I have (oh, this is about me, sorry) with an establishment that’s all about feelin’ good. And I’d go so far as to say that the addition of art to this feelin’ good venue makes for feelin’ even gooder!

I was invited to hang some paintings on the walls of the cafe area at the Natural Wellness Centre in Nottingham (it’s on Derby Road in what used to be the Focus Gallery, aptly). Given that my work generally focuses on human interaction and psychology and embraces strong and vibrant colour it seemed a really good fit for the venue. As an added bonus, the walls are the perfect colour!

I’m all for the idea of art in public spaces. I don’t just mean commissioned pieces that are there to enhance a community, although that stuff’s good too - I mean in places like this, where people go to do other things and there just happens to be some original art there too. In the early 90s I lived in Lady Bay (Nottingham) and I was making textile art. I felt keenly that art should be in places like surgeries and dentists because people are generally not that happy to be there and might well be in need of a little distraction other than an ancient Take A Break magazine. I said this to my GP (who was a wonderful man) and he commissioned me to make a wall hanging for the surgery.

Recently, at a group exhibition I was in, a chap who was an ex-gallery owner and was going into the restaurant business said of my paintings ‘these would work really well in a restaurant!’ And I thought yes! They would! It’s just occurred to me that I could’ve taken offence at that - what? My paintings in a….restaurant?? But they’re supposed to be in a gallery, darling! Nope - totally up for the restaurant thing. And the office thing and the waiting room thing and the hotel thing and the pub thing and wherever else you might put some (real) art rather than Ikea (other Scandinavian furnishing stores are(n’t) available) prints. (As it happens I have some of my older abstract pieces on the walls of the gorgeous Little Bricks restaurant which right next door the the Natural Wellness Centre.)

Art in unexpected places helps us to break away from the rigid idea of galleries being the only place to view art. Many people don’t feel comfortable going into galleries, they worry that they ‘don’t know anything about art’. If they’re sitting have a coffee and bacon butty they’re comfortable, at ease in their own world and the art has entered that world rather than grandiosely summoning them to a place they don’t want to be. Showing art in other places democratises it and increases its accessibility, gets a whole load of other eyes on it than would’ve otherwise been possible. None of this is to say I’m against galleries in any way - I just think we need more of the other stuff too.

The paintings in the Natural Wellness Centre are all available to buy and will be displayed until March 10th.