A need for Art in Rehabilitation
- rosskernow
- Sep 23, 2024
- 3 min read
The team at Turra Physio are honoured to display the art of Marta Feyles. https://www.uprootedwink.com/ @martafeyles. in our clinic in Turriff.
We have her inspiring works in our clinic because it is an expression of senses, emotions and form, born out of her connection to life and nature. Their presence at Turra Physio changes not only the aesthetic of our clinic room but our sense of presence in the place, the moment, and grounds us in our relationship to the people and earth we are doing our best to care for.
Marta has written a piece, which you can read below, about why art affects our senses and discusses the wider meaning of art in our culture.
We believe at Turra Physio that creating and experiencing art is an essential part of our humanity, it enables us to understand ourselves, the world, and how to be a truly egalitarian species. We recognise, but cannot fully understand arts healing properties, because like ourselves it is a compendium of interactions, experience and, other species. It reminds us that we are and will always be in total dependency to each other. Art is a fruit and feeder of our culture, it is utterly hand woven into the worlds ecosystem.
As humans, we have always off loaded our minds onto other things, from cave paintings on the wall to teach others about the world, to singing and discourse, and sharing meaning and stories, giving us context for our moment in this world. We inherently need to load aspects of ourselves into the world and by creating and embracing art, as a way to do that. The experience of the process of production is as much part of how humans understand themselves, and the world, as is the product.
Marta Feyles writes:
"How does art affect our senses?", I first question what art is in the first place. Fortunately, and unsurprisingly, art defies definition, though we know well where to find it. It is not a cliché to reiterate that art lives in the eyes of the beholder, transient yet stationary. Art is life when thought of as a continuum—a collective of processes—or nature, when the latter is framed into a singular shot, a fictitious stillness that we call the present moment.
As with both life and nature, art emerges as a window or a mirror. I would dare say that it is often ourselves who affect the art before us more than the opposite. In other words, human beings are seekers, and for that reason, we project our inner workings onto anything that catches our attention.
Art manifests as a window when the viewer is open to experiencing otherness—absorbing and creating space within to integrate it—perhaps entertaining the solipsistic desire to be nothing more than an empty shell. However, one can also sit by a window and let the landscape pass by, or the view might become so familiar that novelty arises as we look away.
When art acts as a mirror, it brings forth hidden corners of ourselves. We are drawn in, sometimes unwillingly, to face the edges we have temporarily padded. By shining this light, art can rip off plasters as well as mend wounds. In this case, the viewer may find it hard to sit with the reflection for long; if one is reluctant to look, even a brief glance reveals what is, what it means to be, and what it feels like in that moment.
Art expresses what it feels like to be life and nature. It is both process and outcome—the beginning, the end, and everything in between. This is why we affect art as much as we are affected by it. It doesn’t give answers or definitions. Art is a self-generative question machine, reminding us to be curious, to feel deeply and passionately. In this way, it teaches us to contemplate and surrender to the unknowable—and for that reason alone, it is a journey worth taking.
Upcoming exhibition will be on the 30th of November and 1st December and is titled “Seme”, which in Italian stands for “seed”, whilst in semiotics, "seme" is the smallest unit of meaning.
Marta Feyleş
Uprooted wINK
Visual and tattoo artist based in Penzance, Cornwall
