Why the Art You Choose Is Already Changing You

A few years ago, at an exhibition in Belgium, a woman stood in front of one of my paintings for a long time. Hidden inside the piece was a small message: dare to fall to learn to fly. She bought the painting that day. Months later she told me that standing in front of it was the moment she decided to leave her marriage and start a new life.

I didn't paint that piece to end a marriage. I painted it because the phrase mattered to me. But that's the thing about art with meaning inside it: once it leaves your hands, it starts a conversation with whoever is ready to hear it.

We are always in transition

If there's one thing twenty years in project management taught me, and art therapy training is now teaching me from a completely different angle, it's this: nobody is ever really "arrived." We are always in transition — between jobs, relationships, versions of ourselves, states of health, stages of life, motherhood, etc. The woman in Belgium was in an obvious, dramatic transition. But most of the people who buy a piece from me aren't leaving a marriage. They're just trying to hold onto a feeling, or call one in.

One mother bought a painting of a tiger for her daughter — not for the colours, not for the size of the wall it would fill, but because she wanted her daughter to absorb strength just by living with that image every day. That's not decoration. That's a deliberate, repeated act of transmission.

It isn't just "pretty wall decoration" — here's why

People sometimes assume that buying art for emotional reasons is a soft, slightly indulgent idea. As someone who has participated more than 20 years in personal development trainings and is currently training in art therapy, I'd push back on that.

Three things are happening when you hang a symbolic painting somewhere you'll see it daily:

• Anchoring. The image becomes a fixed point your mind returns to, a way of marking and remembering an intention or a turning point — much like a photograph anchors a memory, except this anchor is one you chose on purpose, for what it represents.

• Visualization. A lotus, a tiger, a hand reaching upward — these aren't just pretty shapes. They're a daily, wordless rehearsal of where you're trying to go. Seeing the image again and again reinforces the mental rehearsal of the step you're trying to take.

• Colour and mood. Colour has a direct, physiological effect on how we feel — it can calm a nervous system, lift a flat mood, or bring a quiet kind of joy. Surrounding yourself with colours and images that uplift you is not vanity. It's one of the simplest forms of self-care available.

None of this requires you to believe in anything mystical. It just requires understanding that your environment shapes your mind, every single day, whether you're paying attention to it or not.

I didn't learn this in theory, only. I lived it.

I spent nearly twenty years in a career I was genuinely good at and genuinely loved — Higher education project management, high-pressure, well paid, demanding, alongside raising two small children. I think, looking back, I loved it too much. I gave it everything.

Then came a long, difficult bout of COVID, and months later my body simply gave out. Burnout, real exhaustion, the kind that doesn't respond to a weekend off.

In the middle of that, I once stood in front of a painting by Monica Esgueva — a hand helping humanity rise — and told my husband how powerful that image felt to me. My body was trembling. He bought it for me for Christmas. I cried. I still look at it every day. It has never stopped being a place I return to when I need to find a bit more strength to do something meaningful — for myself, for the people around me, for whatever the day asks of me.

That painting didn't fix my burnout. But it became a daily anchor while I rebuilt myself, piece by piece, into the person — and the artist — I am now.

How to choose art that actually does something for you

If you're standing in front of a piece and wondering whether it's "just" beautiful or actually meant for you, here are the two questions I'd ask:

Does this piece speak to your soul — to who you are right now, and who you're becoming?

Does it give you the empowerment to do something meaningful, each day, for yourself, for the people around you, for the wider world?

If the answer is yes, it's not only decoration. It's a tool.

Look at your walls

We surround ourselves with images without thinking about what they're quietly telling us, day after day. A painting that holds the right symbol, at the right moment in your life, can do more than match your sofa. It can remind you, every single morning, of the person you're choosing to become. Every painting I make is built to do exactly that — if you're ready to look, you can browse the original mixed media paintings here.

That's not a sales pitch. It's twenty years of watching people change — including myself — in front of a piece of art.