Splash on Peel Tamworth hosts speed-painting, first exhibition

Splash on Peel will host its first show in its new location, with the title Finding Extraordinary in Everyday Ordinary.

And as part of the opening, more than 10 artists will each produce a work within half an hour, based on a mystery theme, in a live speed-painting session.

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Splash on Peel had been running pop-up art workshops at the Inland Cafe for about 18 months, co-owner Bec Browning said, and would now have its own home at the corner of Peel and Bligh streets.

She said the aim was to provide a space and events for women, “who do so much for everyone else, to give something to ourselves”.

She said there were great mental health and wellbeing benefits to gathering with others and being creative.

The venue opened on Friday, and Ms Browning and co-owner Renae Madams already had bookings for Christmas parties and team-building workshops.

“We’re really, really excited – and scared as well,” she said.

“We’re a bit nervous and hope the community will embrace it and get behind it.”

Tamworth artists Joanne Stead and Jodie Herden will exhibit their Everyday Ordinary works there until November 16.

Ms Stead said her contributions reflected “mindfulness, the practice of noticing the beauty of all the little things around you and finding joy in that every day”.

“For example, some old sneakers my son’s been wearing: they now have a hole in the bottom, and all the different beautiful shapes and the flow of the laces,” she said.

“Or salt and pepper mills – a set I have at home, that I set up with light behind them … just bringing out the idea that you can celebrate the beauty in all sorts of things that are part of your environment.”

Ms Herden said her artworks focused on “our own individual identity and how, every day, we question who we are – when it is at the very tips of our fingers”.

“Our fingerprint is the only real thing that we carry with us every day that makes us an individual.”