My new body of work Architecture of the mind consists of drawings, paintings, digital and sculptural pieces which explore mental health, thought processes and shape psychology. As part of my work as a freelance artist I deliver music and art sessions on an acute mental health ward which brings me in to close contact with people suffering with a range of illnesses which can often cause unusual behaviour. This got me thinking about how our thoughts or ” thought clouds” would look like if they filled a room or space. Different shapes for different states of mind which would express a particular emotion or mood. The Russian artist Kandinsky used shapes and colour in his paintings to express feelings. The shapes he was most interested in were the circle, triangle, and the square. He thought the triangle would cause aggressive feelings, the square calm feelings, and the circle spiritual feelings. Shape psychology, the influence of shapes on people and what shapes represent in terms of how they affect our emotions is at the core of this work.

“Head Study” is my first response to this concept and is a very quick spontaneous and intuitive approach in terms of construction and materials. “The Dream” uses four shapes, circles, squares, triangles and rectangles. Equal quantities of each shape are used to construct a “Thought Cloud” emanating from the head. The piece evolved through a process of intuitive construction, organic architecture, each shape placed in relation to the next, aesthetic decisions made as the piece evolved.