Painting Enhances Recovery for Local Artist

Online, February 28, 2011 (Newswire.com) - CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - "With treatment, what was once a disordered place has become a place of calm. With art, what was closed off gives the promise of hope." This quote conveys the role art plays in the recovery process for many people living with mental illness. It also captures the essence of Brushes with Life, the volunteer-driven creative arts program at the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health. Robert Kwami Jackson is one of the artists whose work is on display in the Winter 2011 Brushes with Life exhibition that opened February 22, 2011 and will be on view until late spring.

Jackson began his journey with art when he was three years old. "I became interested in art by copying pictures from magazines at the kitchen table at my grandmother's house after school," he says. But it wasn't until he was seven or eight-and saw Pablo Picasso's Guernica-that he decided to become an artist. "At that exact moment, I said to myself: 'I can do that.' Whether I could or couldn't, I believed that I could."

From then on, Jackson sketched all the time. "Art with no color, no paintings, not even shading with pencils," he says. "This wasn't intentional, but I do believe this established my art style, which I later [applied to] my paintings."

At 19, Jackson found himself at commercial art school, where he learned to paint. Sixteen years later, Jackson still paints, enjoying the peace of mind it brings him. His art also nurtures a new dream: to become an art teacher. Brushes with Life is the first gallery to show Jackson's body of work.

"Brushes with Life means as much to the volunteers involved with the program as it does to the artists themselves," said Bebe Smith, co-director of the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health, one of the parent organizations of Brushes with Life. "We see people enjoying life again by being creative in a place where they feel accepted and understood. That helps to keep us inspired as we support them with their recovery."

The Brushes with Life Gallery is the program's primary exhibition space. In addition, the program's all-volunteer organizing committee coordinates occasional traveling shows. The most recent event was a special showing of a variety of artists' work in November 2010 at FRANK, the gallery in Chapel Hill.

A joint program of the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health and UNC Hospitals, Brushes with Life: Art, Artists, and Mental Illness is a creative arts program supporting recovery for people living with severe mental illness in the Chapel Hill, N.C. area. Since opening in 2000, the program and Gallery have been highlighted in national, state, and local media, have garnered numerous honors, and have been featured in the award-winning documentary film Brushes with Life by Philip Brubaker. The Gallery is located on the third floor of the UNC Neurosciences Hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C. and is open from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., seven days per week. Parking is available in the UNC Hospitals Dogwood Deck on Manning Drive and in nearby campus lots. Artists who wish to sell their work receive 100 percent of the proceeds. To purchase artwork, make a donation, volunteer, or find out more, please visit unccmh.org or email [email protected].

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For more information or to arrange interviews with Brushes with Life artists, contact:
Bebe Smith, MSW, LCSW,
Clinical Assistant Professor
Co-director, UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health
[email protected]
919.843.3794