Get yourself down to Wild Bytes Cafe on Darlington Street from 19:00 this evening (Saturday 23 January) for an art exhibition from Jamie Howe entitled ‘Manic Man’.

From the Wild Bytes event page:

Jamie Howe is a bipolar artist living on the edge, close to madness. Touching genius. He has the variety of Picasso, the mysticism of Austin Osman Spare and captures emotion in vibrant abstract pieces made of refuse and paint. Starting off being obsessed with portraiture and savouring a moment in time with acrylic dye; to make something permanent. Howe, like many famous artists before him, has been gripped by mental illness and has lived his life swaying between depression and mania, often dangerously, always, through art, expressing the world through the medium of paint, photography and sculpture.
This exhibition is a rare insight into the life of a recluse who has to create to survive in this destructive world living in a chaotic mind.

“The artists journey is roller coaster. I keep thinking it will end but fire always returns to me and it keeps on going. I burn myself out and paint 30 paintings during my nights of insomnia and then the fatigue sets in and I am useless for days, weeks, Ill and empty. But like a Phoenix I am reborn out of the ashes and go happily on search for the holy grail. It could be a scribble, a rumple, a tear, a smiling tooth. I have to capture things. The world is passing me by!”

Howe’s use of colour is outstanding and his work – much of it eclectic, some of it disturbing but none of it boring, will draw you in. You’ll instantly get an insight into the working of Howe’s mind – and what’s more, the event is free, with the artist himself on hand to discuss techniques and elements of his work.