Exploring mental health through expressive arts

The mindshare Group Exhibition is an annual collaboration held in October as part of Mental Health Awareness Month. The Exhibition showcases artwork, creative writing and poetry from creatives living with mental health challenges in partnership with the Mental Health Coalition of South Australia, Life Without Barriers Living Arts program, NEAMI National’s Arts program, and the City of Adelaide.  

On Friday, 4 October, the Exhibition was officially launched with a vibrant gathering at the North Adelaide Community Centre. 

Image: Groups of people talking and looking at the art on display at the mindshare Exhibition.

This year, Living Arts presented their largest body of work to date, with more than 70 solo and collaborative artworks on display at the North Adelaide Community Centre. The artwork showcased in the Exhibition included works from five participants from  Mental Health and Disability programs and eight participants from the Child, Youth and Family programs at Life Without Barriers.  

Alongside these are five collaborative pieces involving community participants at events such as Reconciliation Week and NAIDOC Week and the CREATE Foundation Voices in Action Conference for young people in care.  

Image: A collection of art pieces on display at the Exhibition.

Resident Artists Phi Theodoros and Natasha Sumner have also contributed artwork, alongside an artist supported by Isy Ashford, Arts Therapist, from The Art To Wellbeing. 

"Curating such a diverse body of work by folx with complex lived experience into an exhibition can easily become overwhelming, but seeing everything on the walls and the collective buzz at our launch event makes everything worthwhile," said Phi Theodoros, Lead Resident Artist.

"Supporting our participants to develop work, share stories, and be recognised for their creativity and resilience is so important. Not just for reducing stigma during Mental Health Month, but all year around!" 

Image: Phi and Jo singing at the launch of the mindshare Exhibition.

This year, Radi, a traditional and digital artist from the Living Arts program, had their work featured in the mindshare Exhibition for the second time.  

"I didn’t think that I would have this opportunity at this part of my art progress. Doing it a second time, it’s still quite shocking to me," Radi shared. 

Many of the artists featured in the exhibition have utilised expressive arts to explore their recovery journey, highlighting how art can be an important tool for healing and emphasising the importance of looking after mental health.  

“I have a piece that’s featured on this year’s mindshare, which is a painting I did while having a panic attack and conveying those raw emotions," Radi said. 

The art works also serve as a powerful tool to educate the community, as Radi shares. 

"It’s an interesting experiment; being an artist, I like to connect my art with myself, so I like sharing and going into the details of mental health." 

Image: Artwork created by '_Saturn Wings_' (Radi), titled 'Healing Hand'.

Through their work, Radi also seeks to convey that disability does not diminish their creative ability. 

"I am an artist with a couple of disabilities, but it doesn’t disable me to do art." 

"Even if you have disabilities, you can still definitely still show the world what you can do; it doesn’t have to be art, it can be anything," Radi said. 

"The biggest thing that I have learnt is that if you give me a chance, I’ll do something, and I will do it to my absolute best." 

Image: Artwork created by'_Saturn Wings_' (Radi), titled 'Finn the Venus Flycat!'.

Keelan, an emerging photographer who joined the Living Arts Photography Club in January this year, visited the Exhibition alongside his peers from the Photography Club. 

"I didn’t expect to see my photos up there, it’s cool though," Keelan said. 

"I really like going out in nature, there are so many beautiful things that you can see and when I’m taking photographs it almost opens up your eyes to new and often unseen things." 

Image: A photo taken by Keelan, showing a close up of a mushroom.

Greg, another contributing artist, shared his reflection on the process of making works across different mediums. 

"Exploring both mediums of charcoal and clay were so organic, I felt a real sense joy out of using such ancient and earthy tools while creating both pieces," Greg said.  

"I like how my artworks appear rough, course and sort of dangerous looking rather than then being too polished." 

"I encourage aspiring artists to try different mediums like charcoal and clay. Be open to exploring alternative outlooks, don’t be afraid of the rough edges."

"Don’t be afraid of colouring in beyond the lines we are all given to work with." 

Image: Greg standing in front of his art at the 2024 mindshare Exhibition.

This will be 9-year-old John’s* third time taking part in the mindshare Exhibition. Art has been a wonderful way of connecting John, a proud Barkindji boy from the Darling River basin in Far West New South Wales, to his culture.

His artwork’s structure, colours, and elements refer back to his Country, like the Barka River (Darling River). His artworks also often feature kangaroo paws, to acknowledge that he is on Kaurna land. 

"I usually look at the photos we took when we went to the place," said John, referring to his visits back to his Country.   

"The hills are Mutawintji National Park. They’re the hills’ colours." 

John treasures a Barkindji artwork that his foster carers Paula and Brenton bought for him and his sister. When he was introduced to art through our Living Arts school holiday program, John wanted to replicate that artwork. He exhibited his resulting artwork in the first Mindshare exhibition he took part in.  

When asked what he enjoys most about painting, John answered, "it makes me feel calm." 

Image: Artwork created by John, titled 'My family'.

Living Arts would like to thank the staff, participants, and management across Life Without Barriers’ Child, Youth and Family, Disability and Mental Health teams and acknowledge the Social Work Students Jackie Ma and Zoie Ho for their support during the lead up to, the installation and launch of this Exhibition.  

An honourable mention goes to Heidi Byrne and Andrew Lawrence, two dedicated Community Rehabilitation Support Workers from the Non-Acute Psychosocial Support (NAPS) Mental Health program who have gone above and beyond to support four of their participants to contribute almost half of the works on display across mediums of ceramics, pastel and charcoal, oil painting, watercolour and acrylic and collage.  

Living Arts would also like to acknowledge the Social Work Students across multiple programs who volunteered at the Exhibition launch, Betty, Charli, Sienna, Levine and Lukas.  

A big thank you also to Gogo Events, who helped coordinate the exhibition and launch event on behalf of the Mental Health Coalition and to Vass Hay from NEAMI National and Kerry Maloney from Skylight Mental Health who have curated works from their participants at the Adelaide City and Hutt Street Libraries. 

Image: Two people looking at the art on display at the Exhibition.

The Exhibition will remain on display across the Adelaide City Library, North Adelaide Community Centre and Hutt Street Library until the end of the month. You can also view the artworks online at mindshare.org.au. 

*Names have been changed to protect the young people in this story.