This painting is called “Where Love & Justice Meet” and I painted it around 2010. I would consider this painting one of my signature pieces even though my style and life have changed substantially since I painted this piece. It reminds me of small beginnings. How small I felt in the world, how small I felt in light of the circumstances facing me, and how I was just beginning an important journey of inner healing.
When I first began to paint, I painted small girls alone in a spacious and colorful place. The paintings are spacious height wise but if you notice, there are lots of trees in my paintings. They surround the girl-she has space to breathe but is also shielded and protected. To me, that seems to be the perfect illustration of a good childhood. Freedom to roam but not without protective guardrails.
The women in my recent pieces are large and overtake the canvas. Unintentionally done, I have watched the little girl in my painting grow up over the past 9 years. She is no longer small, she is larger. She isn’t clothed in a simple dress, now she is more adorned and equipped. I went into painting to see the healing and rescue of sex-trafficking victims (more about that here), but I didn’t realize until recently that God used painting to do some rescuing in me as well.
The problem with growing up experiencing trauma continuously (despite the obvious) is that we don’t really realize how much of how we were made to operate gives way to survival. When you are forced to choose fight or flight, parts of our soul that were meant to express and create start to shut down. I often wonder if it’s because we don’t see art or expression as a necessary part of life. However, in researching the effects of art therapy, I have found that it can sometimes be the only answer to healing hurting hearts. To calming fears. And to bringing hope. I have found that to be true for me.
When you look at these paintings, you will see a blend of two things: a loving Father healing his daughter and a passionate daughter wanting to delight her Father. The beauty of God is astounding to me. To behold the face of God, to see his beauty and poetry in the ways he has intervened in my life is nothing short of breath-taking. I want you to see it too. There is healing for you. There is breath for you. There are miracles simmering within the vastness of God’s heart-ready to pour out on you should you be willing to receive.
-SEREEN