Healing in Colour

In Partnership with Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries

May 5–June 11, 2021

How can art help someone process their experience with mental health challenges? What stories have gone unheard in our faith communities? Are there wounds and stigmas we have perpetuated or overlooked? How can the Church be a supportive and safe place for the journey of healing? What can we all learn about beauty, hope, and healing when we listen to the voices of marginalized people? In conversations about mental health and faith, the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and peoples of colour individuals often go unrecognized. Yet there are real disparities in the accessibility and quality of mental health care for BIPOC people and communities. Healing in Colour explores the intersection of race, faith, and mental health. Featuring Black, Indigenous, and peoples of colour artists from around the world, the show highlights their experiences, wounds, and journeys of healing.

The collection includes a variety of mediums, from linocut to dance to acrylic. Artists reflect on the role their faith plays in how they understand mental health challenges and aspects of the recovery journey, exploring themes of mental illness, stigma, recovery, companionship, and self-care. If these lived experiences are a prism through which we view the world, the beauty that exists in our humanity and relationships to God and one another is reflected through them.

Through their stories and reflections, artists raise awareness and open the door for conversations about the particular experience of living with mental health challenges for BIPOC individuals, and how their faith and culture have impacted their healing journeys. We invite you to listen to these stories and consider how they might shape you and your faith communities.

Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries is a Christian non-profit that equips the Church to support mental health and wellbeing. Sanctuary envisions a future where the Church plays a vital role in supporting mental health and wellbeing in every community. We provide resources that meaningfully engage the topics of faith and mental health. Our content is developed in collaboration with theologians, psychologists, and people with lived experience of mental health challenges. These resources prepare communities of faith around the world to raise awareness, reduce stigma, support mental health, and promote mental wellbeing.

You can learn more about Sanctuary on their website at sanctuarymentalhealth.org

Special Thanks to Vancouver Foundation, Vancity Credit Union, United Way Lower Mainland, and the City of Vancouver for providing funding to Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries for this project.

8x8” prints of some of the artwork featured in this gallery are available for purchase on Sanctuary’s website. Visit sanctuarymentalhealth.org/healing-in-colour

Healing in Colour: In Partnership with Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries

Allowance is Holy Water

Carole Rogers

15"x 15" Canvas Print

$225

I don’t think grief goes away—especially as a Black woman. Our resilience is birthed out of necessity, not superhuman strength. Our strength is used by others as an excuse to strip us of our humanity; we are not allowed sadness and stillness. Sometimes, all I have in me is tears and even those are in service to building space. Unfortunately, white pastors are most often ill-equipped to handle a hurt BIPOC. Their empathy and Christ-like compassion often runs dry for us. When your emotions are often deemed “too much,” crying is recovery, and if no one else allows space for that, we will. We will pastor each other.

Carole Rogers is an artist from New York, currently living in Orlando, Florida. She had a very intense year: Her race, as well as the effects of racism on her mental health, left her with many questions about faith—questions that are still unanswered. After leaving a spiritually abusive and racist church with a group of BIPOC friends, this project really hit home. At first she was afraid to take it on because she is still wrestling with her own faith in the wake of her trauma. However, in the end she thought that’s why she needed to do it—not only to help herself, but to bring a perspective from someone who is still struggling. The full conversation is important.

Anxiety, An Allegory

Dua Abbas Rizvi

36" x 36"

Canvas Print

$700

One of the strangest sensations of living with high- functioning anxiety is that you appear composed and your life appears impeccably put-together. But the reality is that living with an anxiety that constantly propels you to do more, without pause or rest, can feel like an extended dream-sequence—lurid, and marked by an unnaturally heightened sensory perception. I am hyper-vigilant and live constantly in fear of the earth being pulled from under my feet. Consequently, the fruits of my labour scatter and spoil before I’ve had a chance to enjoy them. It became easier for me to approach this condition through an allegorical visual language involving fruit, as fruit so often signifies rewards and bounty of both a secular and spiritual nature.

Dua Abbas Rizvi (b. 1987) is a visual artist, illustrator, and art journalist based in Lahore, Pakistan. She graduated from the National College of Arts (Lahore) in 2010 with awards for excellence. Her artwork has been part of several exhibitions including Stations of the Cross (New York) and Art for Education: Contemporary Artists from Pakistan (Milan). Rizvi's largely figurative practice explores womanhood through personal and familial archives, rooted in regional history and folklore. It is inspired, too, by embodied rituals of faith and remembrance. During the first lockdown in 2020, Rizvi found herself spending more time in her home-studio working freehand with paper. The act of cutting brightly-coloured, hand-painting paper into large, comforting shapes Brough her immense relief from anxiety. For this exhibition, she decided to continue her intuitive, uninhibited dragon with scissors to create images of hope and loss reminiscent of picture-book illustrations.

Braided Moon

Randall Barnetson

15" x 15"

Facemounted Print

$295

To depict mental health challenges and my experiences, I have created a moon design with a braid around it. The moon symbolizes my struggles with mental health. There have been many nights I spent crying out to God. For me, the moon represents all those unseen tears and emotions. While these emotions go unseen by man, these emotions are seen by Creator Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, who understands our grief (Isaiah 53:3). He is the one who has kept track of all our sorrows, who has collected all our tears (Psalm 56:8). The braid around the moon signifies how mental health is a part of everything in the life of someone who is struggling. Sorrow is essentially braided into everything in life. The moon and braid are my attempt to illustrate the notion of mental health needs and my experience with clinical depression.

Randall Bear Barnetson is Nadleh Whut’en, Dakelh, and of the Bear Clan. As an Indigenous Person from the Northwest Coast, Randall Bear uses the traditional art style of his people as a framework to interpret contemporary issues such as identity, spirituality, mental health, and culture.

Companions

Patricia Brintle

8"x 8"

Canvas Print

$95

When I was invited to participate in this project, “companionship” quickly captured my attention. I was taken to a particular day at my church when shawls were being blessed. Each was different; they were created by a group of ladies who prayed over each shawl as it was being made. These “prayer shawls” were destined for people with various illnesses. The hope was that as they wore the soft, cuddly shawls, they would be helped into feeling calm, secure, and safe should they become worried or nervous. The Haitian earthquake of 2010 highlighted a need for mental health recovery and healing—a subject that was stigmatized in Haiti in the past. Now, anxiety and depression are recognized and treated as commonly as any other health condition. My artwork shows two women in a lush Haitian setting, companions for each other, tied together in a healing shawl. They gaze at each other with an unspoken bond; hearts as one, comfort, security, familiarity… companionship.

The works of self-taught Haitian-American Patricia Brintle are vibrant and remind the viewer of Haiti. Brintle’s rich culture serves as her creative muse, inspiring her to capture her homeland’s story through artwork. Some paintings are infused with complex symbolism that seems simple at first glance, but which reveals itself on further examination. She favours bright, vivid colours as she explores the universality of human emotions in her work. Many of her works address complex issues such as nuclear disarmament, the Holocaust, and the Haitian earthquake of 2010; many are religious in nature and explore sensitive subjects. Several are featured in movies and grace the covers of books and magazines. Brintle is an inductee in the 1804 List of Haitian-American Changemakers.

First Spring - Risshun

JUURI

30" x 30"

Printed on Paper, Framed

$350

My work is driven by themes from my Japanese heritage, and is a way for me to find home. Mental wellbeing is also a part of feeling home, and often this piece of the puzzle eludes us. I wanted to paint a girl who is in recovery, who is being saved. Oftentimes recovery doesn’t happen immediately. We may still feel stark and bare whilst only a few signs of life sprout around us. This is alright! My piece is called “Risshun,” which is the name of the Japanese spring season. This season starts off very cold, almost indiscernible from winter. We just have to believe that the blooms are coming soon. And they will.

JUURI is a Tokyo-born Japanese+American artist currently working from Oklahoma City. Her colourful figure-driven work is inspired by traditional Japanese art (bijin-ga and yakusha-e) mixed with a modern fashion photography feel. JUURI’s subjects always have a melancholy look about them, perhaps echoing the artist’s own emotional sensitivities and deep thought regarding the world around her. The florals may subconsciously represent the Garden of Eden...a place JUURI believes all humans seek to find repose and belonging.

Hā – Breath of Life

Danielle Renata

36" x 36"

Facemount print

$850

“Ehara taaku toa I te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.” My strength is not as an individual, but as a collective. Genesis 2:7 speaks about the breath of life with the creation of Adam. The hā is known as the breath of life. It is what is shared in a hongi, during the pressing of noses and foreheads. It creates a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual connection between people, regardless of age, race, or status. In this image, an ancestor shares this space with her descendant, allowing them both to be present with one another in companionship.

Danielle Renata (1999) was born in Wellington, Aotearoa. Her father is Maaori, and her mother is Indian. After attending Catholic primary and secondary school, Dani sought to explore her identity and culture as it was not readily available in the urban world where she was raised. She discovered a passion for creating connections between her love for her people and for her God. Danielle finds the majority of her inspiration in Te Ao Wairua, a space where faith and belief are valued and encouraged. Her passion lies in the restoration and reclamation of her culture, striving to create a safe space for healing with and for her people.

Intersections and the Emmaus Road

Jennifer K. Baker

16" x 16"

Acrylic on Canvas

$350

Stigma casts shadows of shame across our experience and will often eclipse other aspects of who we are. The texture and various colours are reflective of the diversity of our experience and inner life. Racism, stigma, and other systems of power and oppression frame and exclude certain aspects of our identity and experience, making it difficult to be known outside of these categories. The intersecting squares reflect this. Jesus meets us in the most tender, intimate areas of our experience, bringing healing and restored identity, which is reflected in the intersection of the Cross. Jesus journeys with us, as he did on the Emmaus Road, helping us to navigate the complexity of the human experience and leading us home toward him.

Jennifer Baker is an acrylic artist living on the traditional unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh First Nations on the West Coast of Canada. Working with communities experiencing homelessness, addiction, trauma, and mental health challenges, Jennifer witnesses the impact of how intersecting systems of power and oppression, such as racism, colonialism, and patriarchy, affect individuals and communities in intimate ways. In the midst of the privilege of walking alongside these communities and her own lived experience, Jennifer has seen the power and love of Jesus for transformation and healing. Through her art and poetry, Jennifer hopes to provide a window for people to see a part of the beauty of Jesus through her eyes.

Rev. Milissa Ewing

Kwakwakaʼwakw – New Life

8" x 8"

Acrylic on Canvas

$150

In the midst of experiencing trauma that felt like death, I began to walk in the forest, where God always speaks. In those dying days I saw once-majestic old-growth giants, cut down for profit, now stumps on the forest floor. But with time, water, and sunlight, they had become a source of nourishment for new life. God grieved with me and whispered his promise that out of my sorrow, new life would emerge with time, water (God speaking love through my therapist, spiritual director, and soul friends), and sunlight (the healing work of the Spirit). Out of death, resurrection life emerges.

Milissa is passionate about seeing people reconciled to God, one another, creation, and themselves. To that end, Milissa and her husband, Jay, are Pastors at Redwood Park Church in Thunder Bay, ON. Originally from the West Coast of BC, Milissa loves the forest and the lakes and ocean; both her art and her ministryare informed by God speaking through his creation. In her free time, you will find Milissa spending time with Jay and their two daughters, painting, reading, trail running, skiing, swimming in lakes, or cycling.

Recovery

Daniel Bota

20" x 20"

Print on Canvas

$400

The purpose of this art is to celebrate recovery. It is a metaphor representing divine love as it undoes all evil and the effects of sin that distort the image of God in human beings. This is illustrated through the love and care of others. The different hands portrayed act as dynamic vehicles of grace, interrupting the cycle of pain and returning the life, colour, and smile that originally belonged to us but had been stolen. Sharing, mutual prayer, meditation on the Word of God, and confession are powerful tools in our recovery and mental wellbeing.

Daniel Bota is a Brazilian artist. He holds a degree in Advertising from Mackenzie University and Master in Divinity / Theology (SP Brazil). He studied Drawing and Painting in Firenze, Italy. DBota, as he usually signs, has exhibited his art in several countries with many awarded works. A lover of sports, he has gained enormous prominence in the sports scene, with paintings and commissions in honour of many athletes. With a characteristic brushstroke and quirky gestural style, his art has the ability to impact audiences with varied themes, formats, and techniques. His passion is to inspire people with his art, full of movement, colours, and significance.

Stigma

Dorothy Leung

12" x 12"

Paper print, Framed

$125

Stigma causes a person to reveal and project only what they and/or others perceive to be socially or culturally acceptable. The truth of one’s identity or situation is hidden and cast in shadow, often preventing a person from moving forward in their healing. With this piece, I was inspired by light projections. Projected images and colours fall on an object in a very
stark way, causing equally harsh shadows. Making this piece, I reflected on societal and cultural norms that are projected onto us, illuminating our selves in a very curated way that leaves our shadows and unrevealed parts as a deeply contrasting visual weight.

Dorothy is an illustrator from Toronto. A creative dabbler, she has also worked as an architect, photographer, and graphic designer. She was drawn to this project as she reflected on her own journey towards connecting her mental health and her faith. Christ has been the light that shines into her darkness, and he has carried her shame on the cross. While the struggle with stigma in the world as well as in her faith continues, it’s not a hopeless one.

Surrendering It All to Jesus

Robert Young

36" x 36"

Print on Canvas

$750

The inspiration for this piece came from looking at what stigma is like for me given the skin and culture that I was born into. It also came from the revelation that I am beautiful and that I am made in the image of God and that I am his. When we let stigma, our sin, or the sins of others affect us,then we let shame overcome us. The stigma we feel can be due to our environment, or the way people look at the issues or problems we might have lived through, or even what we think people might not like about us.

Robert Young is Gunnai and Waradjurie man; these are some of the First Nations Tribes in Southeastern Australia. He was raised in the church, and saw the stigma and prejudice people can have just because of your race and the colour of your skin—both in and out of the church. He has learnt to be still and know that God is great, to listen to his heart and surrender it all at his feet, and to not listen to the words or thoughts of others. He is holding onto the identity that he has in Christ and not letting the failing words of man sway him.

The Light Upon Us

Dr.Souler

Digital Illustration

NFS

The hand represents us as fragile, sensitive creatures— creatures that suffer damage and can break for different reasons, but above it there will always be a source of light that radiates hope over us fragile beings. That light gives us each strength to move forward; that light can rejoin each of the pieces and return them to their place. The red cross on the hand represents healing, which allows each piece to stay in its place, making us stronger and more unique beings.

Emanuel Orozco, also known as Dr. Souler, is a Christian graphic artist based in Guatemala City. A gifted artist and actual doctor, Dr. Souler’s life and ministry reflect his passion to share the gospel. Art is the tool with which he shares his faith, bringing colour, love, and hope to young people and children in schools, communities, and rehabilitation homes. He’s been part of art festivals in different countries and cities. He is a leader of an art ministry called AmenFamilia. He believes art has the power to connect people. The walls he paints speak for themselves; they are the messengers carrying the message of salvation.

The Man I've Become

Brian Liu

36" x 36"

Facemounted Print

$850

If that seven year old boy was to meet the man I am today, he would not recognize me. I had to leave him behind. That boy was different and a target for discrimination. I had to be someone else. But it seems the boy never left. A part of me is still the boy that was bullied and misunderstood. Over time, it led me to self- hate, anxiety, depression, poor self-image, and shame. Then I met someone who was also strange, rejected, and discriminated against. I guess I felt connected to Jesus because of that. Maybe together we can find acceptance and life again.

About Brian: I was born and raised in Hong Kong and immigrated to BC in 1993. I often felt alone and different growing up in Canada, and focused my time on creative pursuits as a means to understand and to be understood. Later, I pursued further training in painting, printmaking, and communication design at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Currently, I am working as a brand and communication designer and painter. Through creativity and empathy, I hope to live life helping those who are often unheard and misunderstood.

Woven Sun

Randall Barnetson

15" x 15"

Facemounted Print

$295

To illustrate self-care, I have depicted a sun design with a cedar band woven into it. For me, the sun represents life, hope, and peace. My favourite passage in the Bible is Matthew 6, where Jesus says, “Do not worry about what you shall eat, drink, or wear. For the Father knows what you need. So do not worry about tomorrow, for today has enough worry of its own.” Jesus understands that our human minds are full of worry and anxiety, but he presses us to trust in our Father who knows our needs. My father, Pastor Randy Barnetson, recently passed away. His crossing over to the spirit world has deeply shaken my world. When I meditate on the hope we have in Christ for the future, I am filled with hope from the Holy Spirit that I will one day see both my heavenly and earthly father again. This hope causes me to recognize that I must take care of my body in order to make it to that day. The more I trust our Creator Jesus in spirit for my future, the more I am motivated to care for myself in body today. I fully believe we must weave this hope, trust, and care for our bodies into every aspect of our lives, especially in light of our mental health challenges and sorrows. This piece is my attempt to illustrate how we must “weave” this hope and care for ourselves into every aspect of our lives.

Your Echo Through A Membrane

Dua Abbas Rizvi

36" x 36"

Canvas Print

$750

Having grown up in a predominantly patriarchal society, I have been repeatedly exposed to gender inequality in interpersonal relationships. Womanhood and acquiescence are almost dogmatically believed to be intertwined, and a woman’s need to be heard, to be loved, and to be accepted intrinsically is largely neglected. As a result, women cultivate expansive inner worlds to house their truest selves while their physical selves shrink a little every day. To me, then, the gift of companionship is acceptance without the desire to control or curtail. True companionship should broker no tricks and transactions; it should reach through protective or discriminatory barriers with the assurance of presence. It should be a place of safety, where both parties are connected in empathy, even across periods of silence and physical distance.

Zefina

Davi Rabelo

12" x 12"

Linocut Print, Framed

$175

By working with meta-language, this piece is meant to reveal how artmaking itself can be a form of self- care. We can attend to this world and also cultivate a sense of transcendence by engaging with creative work and imagination. The image is inspired by my great- grandmother, Zefina—a humble, black, strong woman who loved doing crochet. It honors the past, the scars, the wrinkles, and recognizes the tensions and contrasts present in life. On a deeper level, self-care for me means knowing who we are, remembering where we come from, and trusting what God is doing in our lives. By the work of his hands, he is making all things new.

Davi is a Brazilian pastor, graphic designer, and printmaker who strongly believes in the power of word and image. Through his work, he seeks to express the beauty, joys, and also sorrows of the human experience. His faith and the world around him inspire most of his creations, in the expectation that it will also inspire others. He believes that art is a form of recognizing and resisting the brokenness of this world that can witness to the hope of its restoration.

Untitled

Makoto Fujimura

Gold leaf painted on seeded washi paper from Nagasaki, Japan

Makoto Fujimura and fifteen friends visited Nagasaki and the Goto Islands Hidden Churches, sites of Christians persecution between the 1500s-1800s. Through the brokenness of the hidden heroes of Christian faith in Japan, Mako was inspired to paint a large format Nihonga painting which incorporated gold leaf and other precious metals—his offering in response to the Japanese martyrs. During the August 2017 performance, Mako ripped up the larger work into smaller pieces. Andrew Nemr danced on the broken pieces as part of his artistic offering. The washi (paper) of the painting was embedded with seeds in its production. Each of the attendees was invited to keep the pieces or plant them so that the seeds would grow again. The piece signifies both the brokenness and beauty, and the death and life-giving ways of culture and arts. They remind us of our innate soul, pointing towards hope and redemption.

(On loan from a private collection. We are deeply grateful for their generosity.)