Artist Natasha Davy is planning to exhibit a 140m panoramic drawing on the wooden sea defences at Gorleston-on-Sea this Sunday. Here, she explains how she drew on the parallels between Norfolk’s eroding coastal path and her struggles with anxiety
A five-day wellbeing walk of the Norfolk Coastal Path, not long after the Covid lockdown, inspired artist Natasha Davy to embark on a 140m panoramic drawing titled ‘Journey of a Troubled Mind’. Natasha’s mammoth work of art, which took her three years, part-time, to draw and used 7 rolls of 1m x 20m paper, shows mental health illnesses depicted as a journey of ebbing landscapes, metaphorically expressing the torment one goes through in life’s journey – and this Sunday she plans to exhibit the drawing at the wooden sea defences at Gorleston-on-Sea.
Natasha, a freelance designer and photographer who attained a First-Class Honours degree in Fine Art earlier this year, says: ‘I’ve always struggled to vocalise my emotions, and especially to give voice to my struggles with anxiety. It comes over me in waves, leaving me with ‘black dog days’ where I try to function, but even the simplest things seem nigh-on impossible. While facing up to a bad patch after the first Covid lockdown, I desperately needed to just get out and reconnect with nature and the countryside around me, so decided to take on the challenge of walking the 100-mile plus Norfolk Coast Path.‘
She says of that initial wellbeing walk: ‘I subconsciously saw humanistic elements of the broken landscape, metaphorically merging into unexplainable mental health issues. After the walk, I got home with my head so full of visual representations, that I recreated the huge journey on rolls of paper to emulate its significance. Working from mind to paper, using interpretation with some of my historical and geographic knowledge of the area, I combined battle sites with the mental ones we face daily.’
Natasha uses her drawing as a form of calming touch therapy, using expressive charcoals (made at home), a key colour pastel, salt, sand, seawater, spray paints, sound graphs and just her hands as the tools, all creating a personal and embodied nature to the piece. She uses rolls of paper because they simulate a journey, where the past is rolled away, like memories, and the future is the blank path ahead of us.
She hopes that the work will become a soundboard for those who have mental health issues, or for those who want to understand them better. She says: ‘You’re not alone. If you can’t talk or write about it, then try to draw it. It may help – it helped me.’
The journey isn’t over yet, by the sounds of it. Natasha adds: ‘Although this view of Norfolk may be complete, its coastline is ever-changing, and I know that I will walk its length again, perhaps capturing how it has changed in the meantime, the pain and loss it has felt in the interim. And then there is the itch that is simply continuing on, down into Suffolk and beyond, scratching further and exploring more, both literally and metaphorically.’
Join Natasha on Sunday 27th October, 2024, from 11am to 2pm, weather-dependent, where she will be exhibiting Journey of a Troubled Mind on the natural sea defences on the sand of the southern side of Gorleston On Sea, Norfolk. To find out more, including any cancellations due to the weather, visit Natasha’s website at: journeyofatroubledmind.co.uk.
Featured image: Natasha Davy with a section of her 140m panoramic titled ‘Journey of a Troubled Mind’, at Gorleston On Sea, on the south end wooden defences. September 2024. Image © Natasha Davy
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