A community interest company promoting contemporary visual arts & participatory arts
In 2019 MONA LISA Arts & Media re-located to the North East of England and is endeavouring to use its knowledge, skills and experience to work in much more deprived areas in this part of the country. It is also where the Directors live and work. We have successfully carried out our first project working with people recovering from addictions, funded by Awards For All.
The arts are a dynamic way of bringing people together to work in collaboration and learn new skills and knowledge. MONA LISA Arts & Media facilitate art workshops, activities and exhibitions in the community, working with schools, businesses, church groups, youth and community groups.
We have curated a number of exhibitions in the local community and surrounding area. They have included works by professional artists, schools, youth and community groups. Since 2009 we have curated a number of art exhibitions covering a wide variety of themes e.g., Arts and Flowers Festival, 2012 Cultural Olympiad, The Diamond Jubilee, WW1 Commemorations/Celebrations, 800th anniversary of the Seal of the Magna Carta, Creative Collaborations to name but a few.
Transformers Youth Arts Group was established in 2010 for children and young people from the South East of England and met on Thursday evenings at St Peter's Church, Burnham. The group of young people aged 8 to 15 years worked with professional artists as part of the MONA LISA Arts & Media's outreach in the community, in partnership with the church. The group was given the opportunity to create artworks for exhibitions and events that have a particular theme or subject. For example they've had their artworks included in exhibitions for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the Diamond Jubilee, Blessed are the Peacemakers and WW1 Commemorations / Celebrations, exhibition at the Royal Holloway University, for the celebrations of the 800th anniversary of the Seal of the Magna Carta.
Rhonda's work is concerned with the creation of a sublime world that manifests in an ephemeral space between an art object and a spectator's experiencing of it; where art works come into being through the 'play' of others. How a work of art may come into 'being' through imagination, and also relates to our connectedness to Nature and how we interact socially with the world around us. Through play and imagination we can create spaces, places and worlds. We can re-connect through our feelings and responses to the sacredness of our lives and our relationships with self, others, objects and the spaces we inhabit.
Claire Rollinson has recently moved back to England after living in Northern Ireland. Her art practice includes the disciplines and expressions of drawing, painting, and printmaking with an element of storytelling running throughout.
Gina Martin works in wood and natural "found" objects, both in her studio and the environment in site-specific pieces. She also works in 2D and 3D using various materials and techniques.
Through the challenging circumstances that have presented themselves to Andy over the last two years, he had to make a conscious decision to be a survivor; as Winston Churchill put it, 'If you find yourself going through hell, keep going'. Out of the dreadful trials we face, there seems to come an inner resolve, a deep reflection, a spiritual awakening and an unquenchable desire to be creative. The works he has recently created are an attempt to represent aspects of his personal journey to find peace, aware that it often seems elusive and fragile.
Caroline has 5 sons and 8 grandchildren and works from her home in Newcastle upon Tyne. She is an artist and gardener with a passion for growing organic fruit and vegetables. As a Quaker she regards their Peace testimony as an important influence in how each of us tries to live our life on a daily basis. In a world so much at war, it is difficult to know how to make a difference. Art cannot, alas, provide food, shelter or medical aid. However, it can and does, nurture, heal our souls and feed our spiritual hunger. My two pieces of work in the exhibition, 'In the Beginning' is my response to the awe I feel about creation itself and 'Behold a New Earth' is an expression of my joy and faith in the eternal cycle of death and rebirth in this wonderful world.
Mary Cook-Cosh is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. The content her work is weighed in exploring aesthetics pertaining to teenagers, teenage life and imaginary landscapes of flora and fauna that creatures and beings often inhabit. Film is inevitably an inspiration and the dialectics of dark drama staged with colourful aesthetics is a tension Mary finds fun to explore. For the World War I Commemorations exhibition in conjunction with Mona Lisa Arts & Media in partnership with St Peter's Church and in collaboration with the Royal British Legion, Mary has created a series of ink and graphite drawings works specially made in honour of young people that lived during the period of World War I. We see young brothers pictured together perhaps before they each set off to war, a propaganda poster picturing young English youth within the circumference of English allies, a "Dazzle Ship", which many young soldiers contributed the fabrication of, in addition to images of a teen getting a routine eye exam or a set of children in the midst of a brief moment.