A Kenilworth artist who has drawn her garden every day during the three national lockdowns has been able to capture both the changing of the seasons and the emotional experiences of the past year in her art.

53 year-old Michala Gyetvai has produced nearly 200 emotional landscapes since the end of March 2020, all of which are interpretations of her own garden.

Michala, who completed her Masters Degree in Art at Coventry University in January 2020 wrote her dissertation on the Poetry of Materiality, which combines two of her creative outlets, painting and writing poetry.

Speaking to Kenilworth Nub News Michala said: "Part of the lockdown experience for me has been drawing my garden every day. I have documented my experience of the pandemic through drawing, so far I have done nearly 200 drawings, all of my garden in Kenilworth!

"It is an emotional diary, its poetic landscape – I am interested in English romanticism, between my poems and my drawings."

As you can see from the attached images, each painting exhibits both the physical changes in her garden across the year, as well as her feelings on a day to day basis.

Michala, who has painted for nearly 15 years now, produced 100 paintings during the first lockdown, finishing on July 1. She then did another 60 during the second lockdown, and is nearing 200 as we find ourselves stuck inside once again.

"One day I would like to show them all together, I just need to find a place big enough to put them all together," says Michala.

Each painting is made up of two sheets slightly bigger than A4 pieces of paper, so the maximum she can fit on her sitting room floor is just 48.

Michala first began these series of paintings after the Facebook community group 'Sitting Rooms of Culture' called out for local creatives to share their work during the first lockdown.

"I was sat in my sitting room, looking out at my garden; my garden became a real place of solace for me.

"Going into the garden became a way for me of calming my anxiety about what everybody was going through."

And so the garden was chosen as the perfect subject for Michala to use for her paintings, to provide both a means of focus during lockdown, and a way of expressing her experiences of being kept in one place.

"I think art is a way of healing, and for me it was a way of art therapy.

"I could see so much in these drawings, but it isn't just what you see, it is what you feel inside."

As well as providing Michala with an outlet for her creativity, the paintings have also given her a chance to reflect more on nature each day.

"I have recorded spring into summer, summer into autumn, autumn into winter and now starting to do winter into spring again.

"Because I have drawn every day, it has shown nature dying and coming back to life again.

"It is the repetition which is very important to me – it has given me the focus during lockdown to cope with being in one place."

Michala has also enjoyed being able to share her work with others: "I contributed to Sitting Rooms of Culture because I felt like I needed to give, because of everything that was so traumatic about the news, you wanted to feel as if you had given something.

"I have seen the relationship with producing the paintings and with sharing the paintings on social media, it is what we want to do now isn't it, document our lives on a daily basis and these drawings have become part of that."

A gallery of some of her paintings can be seen at the top of the page, but if you would like to see more of Michala's work you can follow her on Instagram using this link.

Michala is also a published poet and has recently been featured in a book exploring lockdown experiences of Warwickshire residents.

Remember to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and Instagram.

Want a FREE advert on our website? Follow this link hit the 'Nub It' button and fill in your details!