cblakes2020
Art as Healing
Exploring Mental Health through Creativity & Wellbeing
Combining our creativity, our health, and our physiological processes — the natural functions of the body that respond to emotion and experience — can be a powerful way to foster well-being and self-expression.
Most creativity and the arts hold a therapeutic quality, allowing individuals to explore their emotions and express them in a constructive way.
If we look at Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits, Käthe Kollwitz’s depictions of grief, and the works of many lesser-known artists — some of whom were admitted into asylums, or what we now refer to as being ‘sectioned’ — creativity is often encouraged as part of the healing process – we see how creation becomes survival. Art does not erase pain; it reshapes it.
It allows me and the other to recognise themselves, not as broken, but as becoming.
In this way, in my opinion and how I am reforming my slef, art as medicine is less a cure than a conversation — between body, mind, and the world that witnesses both.
By integrating mental health and creativity, individuals can transform personal experience into expression, turning inner thoughts and emotions into something tangible. Art becomes a mirror of the mind — a way to explore, confront, and sometimes ease what lies beneath the surface. Whether through painting, writing, music, video, or photography, the creative process allows each person to communicate in a language uniquely their own, raising awareness and deepening understanding of mental well-being.
Below is an example of how creativity and art can function as therapy. Video shot and edited by cblakes2020 and Mr Taylor.
Group painting session with live nude models — celebrating life and form. Video shot and edited by cblakes2020 and Mr Taylor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rphw_KTy0Y&ab_channel=MrTaylorthevideocreatorhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtM8pwGZuCA
Mr Taylor has taken the opportunity to put his feelings onto film, using a range of creative approaches to produce this video. In doing so, he provides a reflection of his well-being laid bare, a step towards moving forward.
This piece connects closely with many articles written about expressing trauma through art. And yes — we can agree, he is also very talented.
This video shows a Sip and Paint session with live nude models. The group celebrates life and form in a relaxed, social setting where all skill levels are welcome.
Events like this support well-being by reducing stress, encouraging mindfulness, and turning art into shared expression and connection and laughter.
From Edvard Munch’s The Scream, to Sylvia Plath’s confessional poetry, and modern art therapy practices, creative work can ease stress, anxiety, and depression, strengthening mental well-being.
Creating and sharing art can help reduce the stigma around mental health, encouraging people to seek support when they need it.
On our website, we advocate for bringing mental health into the creative journey. We offer resources, inspiration, and support for artists who want to make meaningful work shaped by their own experiences.
Whether you’re an established artist or just starting out, research shows that engaging in art can support wellbeing—helping to regulate emotion, reduce stress, and offer a space for reflection. From lowering cortisol levels to aiding in the processing of trauma, creative expression has been widely used in both clinical and everyday settings. While art does not “heal” in a fixed or guaranteed sense, it can create the conditions for transformation, understanding, and, at times, recovery.
From Frida Kahlo’s exploration of pain, to Jean-Michel Basquiat’s raw expression of struggle, and the practices of modern art therapy, creativity opens a path toward awareness and recovery.
Join us as we explore the connection between art and mental health, and discover the healing potential of self-expression.
The pictures (below), taken just before Christmas 2022, capture a moment of healing. Creating and painting this cherub became more than decoration — it touched past wounds, offering a sense of belonging and inclusiveness.
Click the Art as a Healing Process Link Below for more information.
Why Representation and self-expression matters
My personal experience: In many mainstream European or Asian stores, angels or cherubs rarely reflect darker skin tones. Painting this figure — giving it a darker pigment as if it produced Melanin — was deeply therapeutic. Placing it on the evergreen conifer (Yule tree / Xmass tree), during this period of christian festivity was not only symbolic but restorative: a gesture of visibility, self-affirmation, and joy.
For me, this act carried something even deeper. I live in Europe, educated in its traditions, but I am a person of colour, melanated with darker pigments and Caribbean roots. I am Surrounded by European rituals and Folklore, all folded into a Christian Christmas — And yet, Christianity thrived in Ethiopia and parts of the African continent long before it entered the pagan realms of Central Europe. So creating a Melanic cherub was a way of saying I am here too. Art becomes medicine. By putting myself forward, by seeing myserlf reflected, we reclaim space, restore dignity, and feel whole, it is part of the Human condition.
Painting the cherub for the Christmas tree was my way of healing, of putting myself into tradition and ritual. It was about representation — seeing myself there, and letting that feel good.
As I sit and type, I reflect upon my work, those same feelings I recallec above show up in the work of artists like Kerry James Marshall. In his talk Mastry, (Internationally acclaimed artist Kerry James Marshall is one of the most important painters working right now) he speaks about how representation isn’t just about the self, but bigger ideas — and how showing Black figures, uncompromised, is powerful and necessary. That really hits the same note I was reaching for with my cherub.
Here’s the link to Kerry James Marshall’s talk: watch here. You can also check out Kerry James Marshall’s critically aclaimed and thought provoking website here
(The Human Condition encompasses the essential, shared experiences of human existence—including birth, growth, emotion, aspiration, conflict, and mortality. It represents the fundamental, often paradoxical, state of being human, bridging biological reality with psychological, social, and philosophical awareness. This broad concept covers the entirety of the human experience, from profound joy to despair, analyzed through art, literature, and science.)
As I continue to explore this idea of Mental Wellbeing and the love of Creative Arts, I find myself returning to the ways creativity has moved through the people I have met — shaping not only what they created, but how they continued. Between what was felt, what is expressed, and what remains.
Forms of art I want to include in this evolving, thought-provoking recall—a living repository of emotional reconstruction, moments of demise, and quiet renaissance—guided by those who have encouraged me since 2020:
Visual Arts – Painting and drawing; where the unseen begins to take form.
Performing Arts – Theatre; translating feeling into form, where the body speaks what words resist.
Photography / Videography – Observing both the process and the progress of healing; a record not just of change, but of becoming.
Creative Writing & Poetry – Finding rhythm, reflection, and release through words.
It’s from here that the next part of my journey — Mental Health and Art — continues.
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Welcome to our website, where we bring together a passion for creativity, mental health, and self-expression through the arts.
Here you’ll find videos, resources, and reflections that explore the healing and transformative power of creativity — from the infamous, to the not-so-famous, to the unknown artists who use art as a way of living, coping, and healing.
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