Painting Back was a 6 week painting programme which brought award-winning artist Ann Quinn directly into contact with 3 different groups in the North West; Foyleville Daycare Centre and Seymour Gardens Care Home in the city as well as Thackeray Place Residential Home in Limavady. The Painting Back project used highly trained facilitators to deliver & film carefully designed visual art-workshops & reminiscence sessions with local residents in a care home / day care setting culminating in an exhibition at Void Gallery and accompanying short film.
‘I feel that the Painting Back project took the participants out of the setting of the Nursing Home or Day Care Centre and allowed them to travel in their minds to places they have loved in the past. I offered the participants a wide selection of photographic images of different landscapes and objects to paint from, which would trigger special memories of the past. Several participants would enter into conversation with me about their childhood as a result of painting from the images of things such as milk tanks on a farm, a country railway train, a beach in Donegal they once used to visit, a tree that looked like another tree, a dog that looked just like their dog. I feel deeply privileged to get a glimpse into the participants’ rich hidden worlds while witnessing the creation of these paintings’.
– Artist Facilitator Ann Quinn
The exhibition was launched by Mayor Elisha Mc Callion with the participants, staff and families on Monday 27th July at 1.30pm.
Kindly funded by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, Turkington Funds.
