The Artful Peace Practice: Understanding Ourselves Through Expressive Art
In a series on artists discussing their work, Canadian-based artist, Nikhat Qureshi, talks about her methodology to gain peace and insight through art.
“Simply some moments are to spend without love, for love, to love, and learn what you are in the hours of solitude.”
How do we have a two-way conversation with ourselves to connect with the higher being we are? The Artful Peace Practice is all about having that conversation. Art is a language that resonates with peacefulness without words. An element that creates an unbiased and non-judgmental connection aligns with our inspirations and motivates us to delve deeper into our inner wellspring of positive energy.
Each of my experiences using art as a medium of gaining coherent insight resulted in reaching the moment I needed to feel grounded, let go, reset and move on. Hence, I founded the Artful Peace Practice (TAPP). TAPP speaks through colors to process conflicts within ourselves to love unconditionally and live with peace, and of course, have some fun!
We can only process grief, loss and anger if we give ourselves space to breathe and reflect while realizing the need and importance of self-care. We become overwhelmed by emotions resulting in actions not aligned with our inner self. We struggle with our frustrations and are unable to express them with appropriate words. We make matters worse and create misunderstandings. Using art as a medium to gain insight helped process my inner conflicts and overwhelming negative emotions.
As a result of this practice, I created this pattern of hearts with my name written repeatedly in Urdu and drawing hearts in different colors. This practice facilitated an insight of forgiving with humility and love for the sake of connecting with the truth. Indeed, holding a grudge is so heavy for a heart that knows only love.
Though I am not at a place to forgive, as a human being, it is only to feel humble, as the attribute of forgiveness belongs to the Higher-Being the Almighty! However, I seek forgiveness. It’s more of an act of letting go of such a burden for my own inner peace.
Nikhat is a law graduate, a certified mediator, self-taught visual artist and calligrapher with training in conflict management and social-emotional learning.
