Artist Kathy Williams has created an art installation combining drawing and paintings from local community groups and St Francis school into abstract shapes and colour, reflecting themes of shelter, safety and belonging. The result is ribbons of colours, drippy walls, and luminous three-dimensional lights gathering together in Place of Safety, an abstract public realm installation for Ventnor Fringe at La Falaise shelter. Place of Safety is an open invitation to be a part of a whirlygig of expression. It has evolved out of Kathy’s obsession to provide the public with opportunities to participate in her work – she calls this Painting As A Democratic Art (PAADA). Previous installations at the Quay Arts Centre and recently at Brighton Library have encouraged visitors to wield a paintbrush and make marks that sit alongside, in front or even over the artist’s work. The result is a joyful cacophony of marks, colours, and gestures which, long after they are taken down, stick in the participants’ memory as moments of abandon, expression and fun. These events then inform Kathy’s practice and have contributed to Place of Safety. Here she has gathered ideas, feelings and emotions and assimilated them into her work where, once again, the public is very much at the heart. 
A 9ft Beacon, situated at the top of La Falaise car park, welcomes you to the Place of Safety. When you enter you’re effectively walking into a painting. Bright colour marks on clear acrylic allow you to inhabit a world of shapeshifting form and colour. Stay. The longer you stay, the more you see as the elements transform in a kaleidoscopic way. The space, if you allow it, becomes your visual playground. In one beat as you peak through the Beacon, a slither of the horizon is framed by a rhapsodic pink dance – a startling new way to view the familiar seascape. In another moment, an unexpected reflection becomes a fleeting spectral presence, a move to the left and it vanishes. 
Each step alters perspective. At twilight, the neon lighting intensifies the coloured shapes. Darkness brings light. Rather incongruously Place of Safety affords a rare opportunity to lose yourself and explore. Kathy Williams has said:
“The work has brought surprise and joy and changes with each weather change, sun direction, and smooth ultra violet glow in the evening. There is always something new to see, the most dramatic between 20:00 and 21:45.”
Place of Safety is at La Falaise shelter, Ventnor. Open daily 11:00 to 20:00 including Sunday 28 July.
Phew, that’s a relief, for one moment I thought the feral vandals had arrived here now.
Either you like Picasso or you don’t.
I am sure some fools still would see the Emperor fully clothed too.