Artists live stream painting process to raise awareness of mental health

Thousands of commuters this week have witnessed a live art project while sitting in gridlocked peak-hour traffic across Brisbane.

Anglicare's Arts&Mind project has seen six south-east Queensland artists living with mental health challenges document their painting process via a social media live stream.

Each artist is expected to complete a work over an eight-hour period.

Snapshots of their progress are then uploaded to billboards throughout the city every 30 minutes.

It is the first project of its kind to run in Australia.

Anglicare's Trina McLellan developed the live art project to refocus people's concepts of mental health.

"The people who live with the challenge of mental health, many have abilities that you don't see such as the arts," she said.

"We wanted to engage that in a public way."

The completed works will be put up for auction to raise for mental health services.

Finding strength through art

Kyan De Vere was the first artist to be featured in the live stream on Tuesday, painting his piece Beginnings.

He lives with borderline personality disorder, addiction and anxiety.

"I'm nothing without my art.

"There's been times when I thought I would stop doing art, but the second I decide to I get so much more inspiration than I ever have.

"I can't imagine my life without art."

Fellow Brisbane artist Ash Peel will paint in coming weeks.

She said she got involved because she wanted more people to talk about mental health.

"I had a lot of family and friends struggle through mental health ... it's such a big issue, I wanted to get rid of the stigma associated with it," she toldĀ ABC Radio Brisbane's Rebecca Levingston.

"The art that I do is experimental.

"I started doing things that were contemporary, but now I'm going more abstract."

To follow the artists at work head to theĀ Anglicare Southern Queensland Facebook page.