Artists at 'Overflow' Exhibition

Organised under the Activ8 charity banner, the exhibition displayed a range and variety of colourful thought provoking pieces, which depicted the artist's own private view of their experiences as mental health service users.

Margaret Moss of Activ8 said they hold many creative workshops in the local area and said: "A lot of hard work was involved in bringing this exhibition together." She added, "We wanted to get it out into the community and have a wider audience. We are working hard to remove the stigma surrounding mental health, because they are just people."

Activat8 is a 'developing set of projects which support people, particularly those who experience mental health distress, to access eight areas of interest.'

These include art and creativity, social interaction, and self-help.

Many artist's showing their work at the exhibition are service users of Bexhill's 73a Centre and one such person is Bexhill resident Richard Matthews. He took a degree in photography at Harrow college and has been taking photographs for thirty years.

He explained that the photographs he was exhibiting originated after his sister, who is a teacher, needed some images to use in class in order for her students to do a project on the seaside.

He said: "My photographs are working images of Hastings; taken after a day walking around Hastings and getting some shots. I'm quite pleased with them."

Richard recently completed a multi-media course at Hastings college and is hoping to exhibit more of his work in the near future including an exhibition at the White Rock theatre gallery in June.

More of Richard's stunning photographs can be seen on his web-site: www.richardmatthews.com.

Another Bexhill artist displaying his work in the form of a cd 'slide show' was 'Andrew'.

Andrew, who recently shared his story with the Observer in which he described his life in the hands of the NHS mental health system, said his cd is a, "cartoon of life."

It portrays a vivid, colourful image, depicting one of the degrading incidents, which he had to endure on a daily basis at the hands of the old mental health system, in the East Sussex Hellingly asylum whereby he was given two drugs with one needle.

He said, "Therefore they were getting two injections for the price of one so I've called this cd, Rude Boys Three, Buy One Get One Free."

The cd lasts for a little over three minutes and leaves a lasting impression.

Andrew said he makes three or four such cd's every year and actively encourages people to have a go.

He said: " My general artists view is that it is very therapeutic, perhaps cathartic, to put down a narrative of events that have been troublesome. And, also, if you can get access to computer equipment, once you have access to that equipment, it's all very cheap or free from then on. It's free to email your own pictures, free to put them on a memory stick, free to save them as wallpaper on your mobile or PC, and cd's cost pence to burn. So get to it - you can do it! That's my message."

He added: "There's a lot of vibrancy around private views such as this event, people like to see local artists and there's a lot of good art throughout Hastings and Rother to be tapped in to, so you have no problem filling a gallery with good quality art and it's a nice social occasion, people like to dress up and there's good conversation."

For more information on Activ8 visit the website at: www.activ8network.org.uk.