Accessible Abstracts is a series of abstract art workshops for people with disabilities, by people with disabilities.

These workshops offer disability led professional arts and cultural education to people with disabilities to empower artists with these barriers through creative skills, experience, confidence and social inclusion. We aim to inspire interest in pursuing art and creative design as a career path.

In Australia, 1 in 5 people have a disability, and over half of those people are unemployed. Through Accessible Abstracts, we will challenge the barriers that people living with disability face accessing conventional education and professional development pathways in the arts.

Accessible Abstracts will provide artists with studio space equipped with artistic materials and support staff to teach and assist. It also provides multiple exhibition opportunities throughout the year, linking participants with and introducing them to prestigious art institutions such as the AGNSW and ArtBank.

During the workshops participants will go through the process of researching the history of abstract art, experiencing contemporary abstract art, learning different abstract mark making techniques, and creating their own unique abstract artworks in response to what they have learned.

This aims to teach participants a pathway to self employment using artistic skills to become a practicing artist.

Art For Accessibility Workshops are run by members of the Front Up Emerge 2016 program, at the Front Up Arts Hub in Seven Hills, Sydney Australia.

The Emerge program helped us as disabled emerging artists to expand and build our art practices, build on our portfolios of work, and increase our skills. In addition, we were taught how to teach accessible art workshops, putting people first. Now we are moving into becoming part of the Front Up team, heading up our own creative workshops.

4 photos shown below are from an art workshop I helped facilitate.