Heart-warming, rainbow-inspired paintings are helping Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital patients along the path to good health, in an exhibition featuring work by Gresham-based artist and therapist Hannah Hardy.
Entitled the Rainbow Bridge, the show follows the success of a smaller scale exhibition staged last year which attracted dozens of positive comments.
'I am really pleased to have been asked to do a larger exhibition as I had so many emails from patients, staff and visitors letting me know that seeing my work in that situation lifted their spirits and supported their healing,' Mrs Hardy said.
'I hope that this new exhibition will create positive feelings for passers-by to connect with, regardless of the journey they are on.'
Former Cromer High School student Mrs Hardy, who trained as a sculptor at Wimbledon College of Art, worked on a number of public art schemes in the UK before spending nine years living and working in France, where she ran an art gallery with her mother – also a sculptor – and hosted community art workshops for adults and children.
After returning to north Norfolk in 2005, she set up her own holistic therapy clinic at her home at Gresham, near Cromer, and now has more than 50 clients on her books.
Her latest exhibition, in the NNUH West Atrium, will feature colourful mixed media paintings with subjects ranging from a pair of healing hands and children playing, to horses and birds and close-up details from Mrs Hardy's artwork for the GoGo Hare sculpture trail, which will run in Norwich this summer to celebrate the 50th anniversary of children's charity Break.
A percentage of sales of work featured in the exhibition will be donated to the NNUH Environmental Arts Project, which aims to enhance the hospital environment for patients, staff and visitors.
The scheme, which is funded by grants and donations, runs art projects, exhibitions and events, hosts performances and art workshops and installs artwork in the hospital corridors and grounds.
Hannah Hardy's Rainbow Bridge exhibition will run in the West Atrium at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital until the end of April. To see more of her work, visit www.hannahhardyart.com
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