Hand on Heart exhibition
An exhibition of original artworks that speak honestly about the things we carry: emotion, identity, and community.
Funded by the Art Council of England and exhibited at the Herbert Art Gallery.
30 years Hand on Heart
Canvas to Change
Among the work featured here are pieces by Canvas to Change, a creative collective for young people aged 16–25, alongside art by other contributors who share the same spirit of openness and expression.
Artwork by Sara
My art discusses how throughout your life, different things will try to grab a piece of your heart. Hobbies, nature, people and much more. Some of those things will be selfish and want to snatch your heart for themselves at your detriment, while others might be beneficial to you and only wish to support your heart. They might try to even help or sabotage each other, losing sight of your heart but still linger close. Regardless of this chaos, your heart will still stand strong and be vibrant and prominent.
When we were briefed with this project “Hand on Heart”, I knew I wanted to take a more experimental approach. I had loose, evolving ideas and wanted my piece to be immersive in some way. Throughout the piece’s development and guided by Lorella I played with acrylic and watercolour paints, paper, varied fabrics, pen, card and more and studied how they all interacted with each other.
Despite the overall design of the piece ever-changing whilst being developed, the desire to use a range of mediums stayed consistent.
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This was for two reasons: Firstly, this was to have the viewer be able to feel the heart along with the hands, but also to honour the complexity and fluidity of humans. We all have aspects of ourselves (our quirks or traits) that stand out and originate from our love for things- from our heart- and having the different mediums contrast from each other, as well as having a flexible design, reflects that.Some scrapped ideas due to time and the piece evolving away from their need include having the hands depict various things in life rather than being plain
white, adding flowers and using an even more varied range of mediums such as markers and pencils.
When viewed online the artwork’s texture, presence and depth is lost. Those things can only be felt in person where the piece will lure you to touch the heart, just as the painted hands are. Your hand joins the hoard, and thus makes you no different, as it is human to desire the feeling of being special to someone and experience, not just see, their heart.
Process work
Artwork by Elham Kafaeimehr
My Heart tells my story, it’s about me, my culture, and where I come from. The layout is inspired by Persian miniature art, and the overall colour palette and theme are inspired by my favourite painting, “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch. Pomegranate is a popular fruit in Iranian culture, and it is my favourite fruit as well. Here, it represents love, the biggest hand at the bottom left corner is my mum giving me the biggest pomegranate, she has always been there for me with her endless love and support, asking nothing in return.
The other two hands are picking up pomegranates that have grown from my heart, that represent the love I give to the world, one for my love for my friends and the other for dancing… The heart is filled with Persian patterns. In the back, the Damavand mountain can be seen and the beautiful nature of Iran.
Two trees at the bottom are commonly seen in Persian miniatures, and there is a tea bag around one of the trees, just because tea is commonly used in Iran, and I love tea. two women on the bottom right side of the frame are my mum and I, having our usual afternoon tea and snacks (when I was back in Iran) There are 2 tiny doors on the left and right inner sides of the frame, one is my room door back in Iran, and the other is my house door back in Iran.
There are 3 poems, each closer to a hand that represents the poem.
- talks about missing someone and longing to see them.
- It’s about dancing and how I feel most myself when dancing.
- It’s about friendship and how friends help in dark times.
Artwork by Sumayyah
Magazines are a very interesting way of viewing the world, as is all pop culture. There’s a mundanity as well as an oversaturated fakeness to them, a carefully curated presentation of the cultural heritage at the time. This piece is mostly a collage of various magazines, notably 90s National Geographics and 2010s beauty and fashion pieces. The combination of the two is interesting to me, and I tried to include a lot of rawness in the piece- like the jaguar’s open mouth and the bloody carcass making up part of the right hand strawberry. The piece as a whole is about intimacy and distance- are the hands forcing their way into a bleeding heart? The clippings of words throughout the piece are things I came across in magazines which resonated with me. The most eye catching of course is “I’m sorry, I don’t have any problems”, and there’s really nothing better to sum up the piece as a whole. No one truly has no problems, but a lot of us want other people to think we don’t. It’s forcibly creating distance and not completely letting the viewer in.
Artwork by Jess P
“Never regret having a good heart”
“Hearts are wild creatures, that’s why our ribs are cages” , Mark Beech
“Let kindness be the language of your heart” , Alexandra Vabiliu
“The world is full of beautiful places, let your heart be one of them” , Jenim Dibie
“The heart that hurts, is a heart that works” , Juliana Hatfield
“Make your heart the more beautiful part of you” , Unknown
Here is the full transcription across all five images, compiled without repetition:
The Rhythm of Flesh and Feeling:
In a quiet cage it beats, A steady drum with tireless feats, Four chambers carved in crimson art, The living engine we call the heart.
With valves that open, close in time, A rhythm strict, almost like rhyme, The atria whisper, ventricles reply, Sending life where cells rely.
Electric sparks , so small, so bright , From nodes that pulse both day and night, An impulse travels swift and true, A wave of charge our cells construe.
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Oxygen rides in rivers of red, Through branching paths our vessels spread, Each beat a push, each flow a gift, A constant, quiet, vital shift.
Yet more than muscle, more than flow It holds things we feel but don’t show, A racing pace when hands entwine Or slowing down in calm design.
For when we laugh or when we fear The heartbeat echoes loud and clear, A bridge between flesh and soul Where science and emotion roll.
So in its pulse both facts and art Are intertwined within the heart , A truth both measured and deeply felt, In every beat, our lives are dealt.
The Quiet Drummer:
A small, quiet drummer in the dark, Counting moments with a steady spark. It speaks in rhythms, soft or wild, A restless, hopeful, fragile child.
It leaps at joy, it aches at pain, It breaks, then learns to beat again. No map can trace the path it charts , The bravest journeys start in hearts.
[Continuation , sea poem:]
Along the edge of a restless sea, Where waves confess what hearts can’t be, A thousand stories drift like foam, Of love once lost, now finding home.
The tide pulls out with broken sighs, salt in the wound, tears in disguise, Each shattered heart a fragile shell, With silent tales it cannot tell.
But oceans whisper low and deep, To those who ache, to those who weep, “The pain you feel will ebb away,” No storm can steal the light of day.
For every heart the sea has torn, another finds itself reborn, In gentle tides and patient grace, New hope begins to take its place.
Some hearts are mending, stitched with care, Learning again that love is there, They rise like dawn from darkest night, Softly returning to the light.
And some still heal in quiet seas, Carried by time and tender breeze, Not whole just yet, but on their way, Stronger with each passing day.
So stand and listen to the shore, It knows what hearts are aching for, That loss may come, but so will art , The sea that breaks can mend a heart.
And some still heal in quiet seas, Carried by time and tender breeze, Not whole just yet, but on their way, Stronger with each passing day.
So stand and listen to the shore, It knows what hearts are aching for, That loss may come, but so will art, The sea that breaks can mend a heart.
Along the edge of a restless sea, Where waves confess what hearts can’t be, A thousand stories drift like foam, Of love once lost, now finding home.
The tide pulls out with broken sighs, salt in the wound, tears in disguise, Each shattered heart a fragile shell, With silent tales it cannot tell.
But oceans whisper low and deep, To those who ache, to those who weep, “The pain you feel will ebb away,” No storm can steal the light of day.
For every heart the sea has torn, another finds itself reborn, In gentle tides and patient grace, New hope begins to take its place.
Some hearts are mending, stitched with care, Learning again that love is there, They rise like dawn from darkest night, Softly returning to the light.
And some still heal in quiet seas, Carried by time and tender breeze, Not whole just yet, but on their way, Stronger with each passing day.
So stand and listen to the shore, It knows what hearts are aching for, That loss may come, but so will art , The sea that breaks can mend a heart.
And some still heal in quiet seas, Carried by time and tender breeze, Not whole just yet, but on their way, Stronger with each passing day.
So stand and listen to the shore, It knows what hearts are aching for, That loss may come, but so will art, The sea that breaks can mend a heart.
Artwork by Jess S
You start life in your parents hands, the hands that determine your future. They are meant to hold and help guide you through the journey of life but they aren’t always the kindest hands, instead they slowly take many pieces of you, leaving you drowning, stuck between your head and your heart. What is the right choice? What is the wrong choice? Which is right for me? It’s only a matter of time before your heart is destroyed from bad experiences, taking a piece away each time, until slowly you have nothing left. Time all folds into one, nothing feels real. Time is nearly up. But just before you go under you’re held up. One good thing. One small sense of
hope keeps you just above the water.
Artwork by Katie
When I started my Hand on Heart piece, I had no idea how I wanted it to turn out or how the final piece would look. So I just took it a step at a time, starting with drawing a heart in the centre of the page and thinking about all the people, things and experiences that felt like they had touched and shaped my heart, whether through love or pain or both. I expressed this by creating a collage from magazine cuttings: I used images, colours and backgrounds to tell a story about my most meaningful emotions and experiences. I think the collage turned out to represent love and joy; the experience of losing loved ones; and the hardship, growth and rebirth that has been happening throughout the years since chronic fatigue syndrome turned my world upside down.
It’s about connection to the people who have helped pull me through my darkest days, and it’s about hope. My heart, and all that’s within it, is held gently, steadily and strongly by the hands of my higher self, or maybe some kind of higher power. I tried to capture a sense of rootedness and regrowth with the hands.
For the background, I chose to layer an explosion of different watercolours on top of a collaged background made from music sheets and magazine extracts that I connected with. I then added handwritten quotes from some songs that are meaningful to me, including a couple written by myself.
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I love listening to, playing and creating music for both light-hearted pleasure and for helping to express and release emotions. I’m glad to feel that I have captured this in my piece, background, along with an expression of joy and movement from the watercolours. I tried to layer on the watercolours in a free-flowing way that was fun to apply and reflects aspects of nature, particularly water and clouds. Being in nature helps me to feel calm, joyful and grounded. I also think nature can reflect our life experiences, help us to process emotions and remind us that everything passes. I’m glad that, even though I had no initial plan, by taking my piece a step at a time I feel I was able to create a final image that feels like an authentic expression of my heart.
Artwork by Summer
• My heart has a big contrast of light/dark to show the change in moods and feelings that I experience day to day with my condition.
• Our hand on heart project was very important to me and helped me express my frustrations and sadness in life as well as the light that shines through.
Our hand on heart project was very important to me because it helped me express many emotions that I feel have been stuck deep down. It represents the sadness and frustrations I feel in life, but looking deeper into it, the light and colour represents hope that I will get better.
The watercolour I used was one of my favourite elements. I have never used watercolour, but it felt extremely freeing to be able to create a sea of colour.
I added a quote in the middle of my heart which was surrounded with blooming flowers to remind myself and others that good days are still coming, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Hand on Heart, How are you feeling?
Wall of hearts, Our interactive art piece at the Hand on Heart exhibition, A project that started at Lillington with our Lillington makers members contribution, and continued at the exhibition where visitors were able to grab a canvas and pour their heart into it, create an art piece and hang it on the wall and be part of our exhibition.
Hand on Heart Sculptures
Our adult groups have worked with different mediums to truthfully say how they feel and what’s in their heart, and they have created these sculptures.
Sculpture by Justine
I hoped to show a heart that is joyful but that has and continues to struggle. There are things that bring peace and joy but it has been through a lot. This has left its mark over the years!
When creating my sculpture, I was focused on showing the negatives. These have filled my days for a very long time and feel ingrained in who I am as a person.
I feel or have felt under constant pressure from others, the world and even myself whether as a mother, daughter, sister, wife, friend or employee wishing time could stand still so i could catch up with life. As a result I feel stressed nearly constantly and try desperately to struggle through and hold it all together.
My heart is a functional pump, an organ but it is my center mass, my feelings, emotions and the sensitive aspect to me. It is easy to hurt me, I feel too strongly, care too much. There is the worry that its time is limited, that i can’t keep all of that inside, there isn’t space. Or perhaps the strong family history of heart disease may mean it fails me in the not too distant future. It feels that at any point something could light that fuse.But I am trying to mend, knit back together, rebuild, reimagine, reinvent continuously. I always keep persevering, attempting to heal from past traumas. I long to feel well, complete, whole, “Normal”, properly functioning in all the realms I need to be.Throughout the creative process, it evolved. I planned to add a rope to constrain and show it bulging around but it took away from the other features. Reflecting on the final piece, I feel it seems more uplifting and positive than intended but perhaps that shows how much hope I have when I think of the things that bring me joy, Nature, Awe, Wildlife, family.My creative side is positive and hopeful, despite everything.Hand on Heart was intended for us to create a piece being true to ourselves and in the process I have learnt more about myself and where I am actually now mentally rather than where I thought I was.I felt stuck and perhaps I need to be more aware of just how much progress I have made.
Artwork by
Artwork by jfhfkfhd
Artwork by Lorella Medici
Artwork by jfhfkfhd
Lillington Makers
Emboridery artwork by the member of Lillington makers
Adult group
Artworks done by our adult members
