WINNERS were grinners for the place getters in the annual GenU ArtX competition on August 19, including Mason Laurence from Penshurst and Carol Pryle from Hamilton.

Mr Laurence and Ms Pryle both had individual paintings entered into the competition by Hamilton art therapist, Sue Catton-Ross.

Mr Laurence came in second place for Best Artwork for his piece ‘Birds of a Feather’, and was awarded with a framed certificate and $250 to pursue his art endeavours.

Ms Pryle took out the Prestige Jayco Choice Award for her acrylic painting ‘Grampians Zen’, sponsored by Geelong Prestigo Jayco, and was also awarded with a framed certificate and $200 towards her art pursuits.

Art therapy can benefit anyone

Ms Catton-Ross is a certified art therapist with a Diploma in Disability, has been an art therapist for around five years and offers one-on-one sessions from her art studio, ‘Studio 44 Chaucer’ in Chaucer Street, Hamilton.

She said that while the field of art therapy is relatively new, the idea that art making can be a form of therapy is very old, and art making is one of the most ancient forms of healing.

“The visual arts, drawing, painting and sculpting are effective and powerful forms of communication that have been used to convey humanity’s collective history of ideas, feelings, dreams and aspirations,” Ms Catton-Ross said.

“I have worked with many people over the years.

“I specialise in autism and cognitive behavioural therapies.

“But anyone can benefit from this form of self-expression through the art making process of self-discovery.

“I also travel at times to facilitate group sessions.”

Ms Catton-Ross has clients who travel from all over the Western District and Portland.

She said the success of this form of therapy enlightens and is proven to be extremely successful in confidence building and self-discovery.

“My referrals come from across multiple agencies and is usually word of mouth,” Ms Catton-Ross said.

“Each session is adapted to the client’s needs and concerns.

“We work together to solve any underlying issues through art.

“The client is the leader and I am a guide providing the tools they need.”

Mr Laurence has been a client of Ms Catton-Ross’ for two plus years and has autism.

He has two one-hour weekly sessions where he has the opportunity to play around with different mediums, but he mostly prefers to work with paint.

“Mason loves to finger paint,” Ms Catton-Ross said.

“He has minimal speech by choice and often communicates by air writing.

“Lately he has been gravitating to wildlife and birds and so forth.

“He paints by colours and then he adds in his own extra details and also does very precise “dotting” using sticks he dips in paint.

“He’s produced around 50 pieces and has them all displayed in his loft at home.”

Safe space

 Mr Laurence’s mother, Janine Laurence, said her son had greatly benefited from the art therapy sessions as he has an intellectual disability and post-traumatic stress disorder on top of his autism.

“It’s amazing because Mason has a lot of sound sensitivity,” she said.

“He’s got an intellectual disability as well and he doesn’t relate to people very well so the relationship building has been amazing because that is something he struggles with.

“Sue has made such a safe space for him – the art is secondary to it all – the therapy itself has given him a connection to someone and helped him to be more relaxed, more comfortable.

“He also has splinter skills, which they’re like abilities that he’s had ever since he was small.

“He could read when he was two, he could read the newspaper, he knows every capital city in the world, he knows how to write music, play music, he taught himself phonics when he was two or three.

“He could write perfectly before he started school.

“He wrote the countries of the world in alphabetic order from memory when he was four on computer, in lots of 20.

“He’s got an accurate visual memory.

“He’s not at savant level but he was ordering numbers when he was still in nappies.

“He can talk but he just doesn’t.

“This is probably the most important thing in his life.”

It’s meditative and inspiring

Carol Pryle is also a weekly art therapy student of Ms Catton-Ross and said she was thrilled to win the Prestige Jayco Choice Award and to sell her painting at the exhibition.

“I was surprised I got a prize because I didn’t think it was a competition, I just thought it was an exhibition for fun,” she said.

“I won a $200 voucher for art supplies.

“The one I submitted I used acrylics and a palette knife.

“It was the view of the Grampians with some rocks someone had stacked.

“I love painting - it’s meditative and inspiring.

“I’ve painted all my life.

“Sue always comes up with some great projects to do, or topics.”

The GenU ArtX annual exhibition and competition embraces diversity, inclusion and features high quality works by local artists from across the south-west region who identify as living with a disability and/or a history of mental illness.

GenU is a disability support and aged care service working across Victoria.

All pieces from the competition were on exhibition at Warrnambool’s Lighthouse Theatre for three weeks which concluded yesterday.