Art Therapy Project with Sutton Women’s Centre

Earlier this year, Sutton College worked in partnership with Sutton Women’s Centre to provide art classes for women who have experienced domestic violence and/or sexual abuse.

Learners explored and enjoyed the process of art to help recognise and connect to their emotions and to help relieve stress and unload anxiety through art techniques.

In the workshops, students were encouraged to spend time:

• Improving their general artistic skills and creativity
• Looking at well-known abstract artists and their techniques
• Using the artists’ eye to see ordinary objects in a different way
• Changing learners’ perceptions on life
• Removing inhibitions by exploring free-flowing art techniques and visual sensations
• Helping recovery (through realisation, empowerment, awareness, visualisation)

Anna, the tutor, explained that the focus should not always on the end product, but on the whole process and the therapeutic benefits of transferring thoughts and emotions onto paper.

Learners started the course by focusing on the physical feelings they have experienced in the past and then attempted to express them through simple, abstract charcoal strokes. They then progressed to experimenting with different materials such as acrylic, oils, watercolours, ink and pastels.

Tutor, Anna Virabyan said:

‘Drawing from my own experiences of overcoming challenges (being an asylum seeker who has survived domestic violence), I have become interested in how mental wellbeing can be improved through art. I provide creative workshops for a different range of people, from different cultures and backgrounds to help them express themselves through different art techniques’.

Sutton Women’s Centre is run by local women for the benefit of local women, and their aim is to empower women in the community to help achieve their full potential.

Sutton Women’s Centre is located at 3 Palmerston Road Sutton Surrey SM1 4QL and can be contacted at info@suttonwomen.co.uk or by calling 020 8661 1991