Even in the brightest of times, life can be testing and take a toll on our disposition. Maintaining a positive outlook can improve our health, reduce stress, and even improve work performance. Keeping a cheery disposition amidst a pandemic is critical, and can also be difficult when so many are relegated to spending most of our time at home.
Fortunately, art has the powerful ability to inspire moods, and OMG Kitty’s latest collection of prints can certainly add some positivity to your sequester. The fantastic landscapes, bright colors, and geometric patterns stand in stark contrast to the world as viewed through doom-scrolls of social media.
Kitty’s prints provide inspiration and hope, as well as depicting fluidity and motivates a reframing of the moment and our current normal. We asked Kitty Bardsley about her new collection of prints, now available for purchase.
1. What prompted the new collection?
Inspiration for the new collection began with one of my older prints that I created last year. I have had some amazing feedback and success from my ’Sun Will Rise’ print that I created last year as a positive reminder to people in response to the pandemic.
It seems that the hopeful message of that print has been really connecting with people, now more than ever, and so I wanted my new collection of prints to build on that hopeful positivity and boost people’s spirits and remind them of their strength and wonder, not only right now but more generally in day to day life.
2. Some of the prints feature paths, was wanderlust an inspiration?
Wanderlust was probably a subconscious inspiration for this collection more than anything given that here in the UK we are in a nationwide lockdown and not able to travel anywhere so I am living out my desire to travel through my art!
However, one of the themes of this collection is the idea of fluidity, that life is fluid and ever-changing and that, while things have been really tough for so many lately, things won’t always be this way. I think the paths are a nice reminder of our dynamism, our fluid and changing state, be it mentally, physically or just external changes around us.
3. Were there particular moods or emotions you aimed to evoke or portray?
Positivity is at the core of these artworks for sure! During such a testing time, I really wanted this collection to be a reminder to people to hold on to hope and try to keep a positive outlook.
4. Were there any unique challenges faced in creating the new collection?
I found that this has been the most enjoyable collection of artworks I have created so far, perhaps because there weren’t many challenges I faced when creating them! I was really inspired by the ideas of positivity and hope that underpinned this collection and I wanted to continue in a similar style to the ’Sun Will Rise’ print I created last year. So I would say I had quite a clear brief from the outset which prevented challenges cropping up during the design process.
