A GRASMERE gallery plans to cheer up so-called Blue Monday with an exhibition of sunshine and colour.

This Monday, January 18, is predicted to be the most depressing day of the year, and the show at the Heaton Cooper Gallery is to feature a rarely seen painting of Les Calanques in Provence by William Heaton Cooper, the grandfather of the gallery’s director Becky Heaton Cooper.

Becky who is arranging the event to raise money for MIND, the mental health charity.

“It is the gloomiest time of the year and if there’s anything we can do to brighten people’s lives for a day, then it has to be worthwhile,” said Becky.

“We have many works of art that we can’t put on display so it’s a very good excuse to choose some of the brightest featuring the most sunshine.”

Blue Monday was identified according to a formula devised by happiness and motivation expert Cliff Arnall, then a lecturer at Cardiff University. His equation, taking into account distance from Christmas, debts and the weather, is now being used by mental health charities to highlight the need to change our routines and give our psychological well-being some attention.

It’s said to be the peak day for couples consulting divorce lawyers; when the post-Christmas blues set in; when people have spent up at Christmas but not yet been paid in January; and when it’s still dark in spite of the shortest day having passed.

An annual campaign to beat Blue Monday was established by Andy Green, a leading expert in brand storytelling, creativity and PR strategy. An author and Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures & Commerce and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Andy has previously marked Blue Monday by filling his office with sand, decorating it with sun umbrellas and asking staff to come to work in Hawaiian shorts.

The Heaton Cooper show has been hailed by Andy, saying: "This wonderful exhibition shows that you can transform the symbolically most depressing day of the year into a celebration of life, and all that there is to enjoy.”

The exhibition is free but visitors will have the chance to donate to MIND and to pick up leaflets about dealing with seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression that occurs in the winter months.

MIND South Lakeland chief officer Jonathan Ingram said: “We are delighted that the studio is doing this to raise awareness. Good mental health is so important, and our local provision for those people who need support can only continue if other people keep supporting our work.

"The past few weeks have been harrowing for many people, with the floods bringing headline news to our own doors. The impact of this will last for a long time to come, and it looks like being a much harder January than usual for many people.”