The September edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features an article by Sabrina Coleman-Pinheiro, a visual artist of Nigerian, British and Sudanese lineage. Sabrina has penned a moving piece about how she rekindled her love for painting as a way of engaging with her grief and anxieties.

I have battled with mental illness for the most part of my life. Apart from being diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder in college, I also had Postpartum Depression and I am Bipolar. But I always assumed I had it under control. Then my cousin died.

My cousin died of brain cancer. She was my age. I was confronted with my own mortality. I was anxious, depressed and quite frankly just wondering when death would arrive at my door, and then I rediscovered art—specifically painting.

I say rediscovered because I was an artistic child. But as with most things in childhood deemed unprofitable, unrealistic and passing fancies, I decided to focus on something more stable – a sales career. Although profitable, my depression worsened. I spent a lot of my time hoping to get hit by a bus or become gravely ill, so I wouldn’t have to go to work.

When Sarah died, I questioned everything I thought I knew. All my old anxieties that I had a tight lid on began to overflow. My mind was no longer under my control. I slid into a much deeper depression.

Then my husband asked “why don’t you start painting again? It always brought you joy, maybe you can find some solace in it.” I was scared, it had been a while, I had lost a lot of knowledge and skill. Then I decided, I’d just paint what I know. I know chaos, confusion and loneliness. I understand what it means to exist with mental conflict every day. So I painted that.

Every day, painting offers me an anchor within the chaos of my life. It provides stability that was previously shattered by my fears. Our bodies may wither but paintings don’t. My acrylics will dry into a hard plastic that will exist long after I am gone. Painting offers me immortality, something I didn’t even know I craved.

Painting is an alluring and beautifully frustrating process, it begins as a soliloquy but once that first stroke is made on the canvas, it becomes a conversation, a partnership between me and my materials. We discuss, argue, agree, come to impasses; we co-exist. Painting requires self-reflection; every piece is a portrait of the self. When I paint I am able to sort through the rubble in my mind and focus on the salient bits necessary to advance my pieces. I do not think about my anxieties, or how difficult it felt to get out of bed. I don’t worry about my mortality, the fragility of the human body. When I paint, I am suspended in microseconds of time. Each stroke a time capsule of each second of my existence with that piece. I become so preoccupied with providing life to my piece that I exist in that reality, and not in one where I am plagued by intrusive thought and depressive moods.

For me painting doesn’t replace therapy or medication. It elevates their efficacy. With painting I can exist as something other than my depression and anxiety.

Read more about Sabrina Coleman-Pinheiro’s works here: http://www.rele.co/sabrina-coleman

Welcome to Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International. Launched in March 2022, this new blog aims to highlight international art and artists, particularly from low-and-middle-income countries, with a focus on mental health. We welcome submissions for consideration, such as, comments on artwork, visual arts, literature, drama, films, podcasts, and videos. Do have a look at the instructions for blog authors for details on how to submit. General enquiries about the blog: BJPInternational@rcpsych.ac.uk .

Professor David Skuse, Editor-in-Chief, BJPsych International