Painted Violins in surprising places!

Keep your eyes peeled for painted instruments in unexpected places from 3-18 July as the Cheltenham Music Festival takes over the town.

Painted Violins is a unique community celebration which combines the beauty of art and music. It runs as part of Cheltenham Music Festival and in complement to the Painted Quartets exhibition at the Summerfield Gallery.

Local school children, community centres and art groups were invited to join the project to create stunning arts of work inspired by violins. Each participant was given a cardboard cut-out violin as a blank canvas, with a short history of the string quartet on the back for inspiration and a sampler CD to listen to as they painted.

The result is a display of over 1000 unique, creative and inspiring painted violins at the Brewery on Henrietta Street, in the window exhibition space of the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum and in shop windows throughout Cheltenham.

Festival Director Meurig Bowen is thrilled by the success of the project,

"I am really delighted by the diversity of groups taking part in this project - from infants to A-level schoolchildren, community groups, art groups, Brownie packs - and the geographical spread - all corners of the county, and even into Herefordshire.'

Both the quality and range of the work is staggering too. People have really had fun adorning this unusual, curvaceous shape. There's fantasy, humour, surprise, delicacy and loving attention to detail in abundance."

The 65th Cheltenham Music Festival is all about celebration and getting people involved, and this project, Cardboard Violins, is a real stand-out part of all this.'


Demelsa Coleman of The Brewery commented, "We are delighted to be able to accommodate the many hundreds of brightly coloured violins here in one of our empty units at the Brewery. The exhibition has really livened up the space and has turned the rather blank hoarding into a wonderful spectacle. The effort from all of the pupils who took part in this has been astounding - there are some really fun and quirkily decorated violins. We hope that many people from Cheltenham will come along to enjoy this exciting exhibition."

Painted Violins are on display now until the end of the Festival at The Brewery and Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Painted Quartets - the three dimensional main exhibition - will be open throughout the festival at the Summerfield Gallery, Pittville Campus.

• Also see : Cheltenham Music Festival 2009

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