Dr. Vass Györgyi doctor-artist

Defiance made me paint. That stubborn Icandoit.

It was four years ago, when I couldn’t get out of bed for six days. My back was aching so bad I couldn’t move. I knew emotions were behind it. I knew it. I felt it. And yet, I just laid there helplessly.

On the seventh day I pulled myself together, left my bed despite the pain, and took out paper and paint with a single thought in my mind.

Let’s see!

I never learned how to paint. I am an anaesthesiologist, after all. A good friend of mine had told me about an art class, where people paint their emotions. I had thought about giving it a try, but up until this moment, I had only got as far as buying the necessary materials. But here I was, sitting in front of the canvas, with not much to lose as I could barely walk. And so I let myself go.

At first it was just blobs and colours. Then as I explored deeper and deeper in myself, it all changed. Even till this day, I don’t think I can paint "properly". But that was never my goal.

I wanted to let go of the past. And so I always let the very thing out of me, which at that exact moment wanted to be on the canvas. I didn’t stand in its way. Since I didn’t know how one is supposed to paint, I just let the colours guide me. If black, then black. If white, then white.

This is the fourth year I've been painting. Sometimes with brushes, sometimes with fluid art. I really like the latter, because the paint flows and swirls, one colour into another. It does so shapelessly, until I feel it to be right. The end result is never quite how I imagined it to be in the beginning. Even if I start with a plan, it will change. I may want to paint a flower, and yet, when I paint in the state of total acceptance, it becomes a storm. Or whatever else is going on inside me.

The colours, the painting, and the process of creation all help me. They help me to stay in the present moment, help me to accept and let go of the emotions that are within me through painting, and through expressing them on canvas.

I love this. Each painting carries something different. Healing.

For myself. But I believe what I've gone through in my life, others can go through too. What I've gone through, what I've carried, also lurks in others. The power of anger, rage, love, light, darkness, birth, death, ego is in everyone, whether they realize it or not.

I believe that my paintings help processing emotions. For me they definitely did.

And they may help you too.

The opening of the ’Soul Sounds’ exhibition