Self Healing Painting

How sleep heals us, emotionally and physically Sometimes both my work as an artist and a massage therapist come together to help the people I work with. Jodie was violently sexually assaulted and traumatised several years ago, and as part of her healing, she decided to come to me for ongoing massage work. I am the only male that Jodie will allow to touch her, and as she saw my other paintings develop, the relationships I have to the other Sleepers, Jodie asked if I'd paint her as a continuance of her healing process and a further opening of her trust. It was a beautiful and mutually beneficial process and I love the resulting painting. As Jodie rolls around in her sleep, her hands are constantly hugging, protecting/healing and reassuring herself in her sleep. In the painting, Jodie is dreaming in the section of the Milky Way that was directly above her when she was born. For me it is akin to going back to her original pattern, the moment of birth and the flight of dreams, her self-healing hands appear and disappear as you walk around the canvas, her pattern changes and she seems to breathe. Four and a half years into the sleep series, and I feel that this painting is finding new sensory connections between deep human emotion and nebulous celestial form(lessness). I am so happy that Jodie wanted to work with me and even more so that both of my arts could be of such a benefit to her.