Healing Art

Denise Griggs b.a.

Intangible
As a Painter I am inspired by Mark Rothko, William Blake, Kandinsky and Johannes Itten who were noted mostly for their other worldly practices, philosophy and scientific knowledge of colour theory.
My own philosophy is a new and an emerging power in the world of medicine. I work with the healing energy of reflected colours through observation and colour vibration. I work in oils on canvas As an Artist I love to create works that go beyond the face of the canvas developing tangible pieces that represent the transient aspects of human biology, mortality and mythology.
I deliberately choose colours associated with the chakras, my intention is to promote a physical sense of peace within the canvas, allowing the observer to develop and maintain a meditative state of mind. This gives the subconscious and the chakras an important opportunity to take part in healing the body and soul during the viewing. For the more scientific facts and figure observer, there is also an allusion to the theoretical field of quantum physics. Deeply embedded in the artwork are macro landscapes similar to outer and inner space.

It is in these spaces where we meet the Spiritual consciousness, that I believe to be ‘The’ driving creative energy that forms our existence. ‘The God Particle’
The colours I work together are not chosen for aesthetic reasons. They contain deep associations with the Mind, Body and Spirit. Each canvas has developed as aspects of the human experience.

I have been especially mindful of including the state of consciousness when working through my colour theories. Current medical thinking works on illnesses being exposed to coloured light, I have taken this further by bringing the reflective colours into the home or place of work. This allows the chakras to be activated within the body preparing the energy centres to receive broad spectrum healing. The colour theory I have begun to explore is based on the oscillation of the eye and how it perceives colour wavelength and contrast. Producing work with deeper imagery without offending the eye so it is able to view the work without disturbance.

The more abstract pieces are intended to be recognised by ‘The Psyche’ a primeval place of developing thoughts and intangible belief systems, So that they linger in the observer's mind long after they have seen the work. Often creating after images that reflect on empty walls if observed long enough and promoting a sense of ‘otherness’, A witness to the observer's awakening. In my new found ceramic practice I am ultimately working towards achieving the same effects as I do with oils and canvas.

Ceramics

Discovering clay has opened a whole new way to express my world. I have a great love the Sea, sea creatures and the landscapes hidden in rock pools and sand.
I find the immediacy of clay incredibly satisfying. I started off on a throwing course and with the pots came an opportunity to embellish the vessels through modelling.

Now I like to move between throwing and Hand building and a combination of both when it comes to my main inspiration of the sea but I have also found a new way to express my passion in Biology, Mortality and Mythology.

I like to experiment with clay additions such as oxides adding colour to various clay bodies. And with clay comes fire!

Pit firing and Raku are my two new favourite processes. I enjoy the accidental moments when all of these things come together and produce wonderful pieces of functional art. And with Raku comes Kintsugi and the embellishment of damaged pots with gold. I have created Naked Raku pieces with gold and silver polished onto Japanese and Chinese style bowls.

The colours used in pit firing do connect with chakras and the tactile smoothness of the wax polished pieces, bring a pleasing sensory experience. It is still early days for my ceramics but I am experimenting on making the bowls more waterproof and food safe, a complete unknown in Raku and pit firing.

Ovoids
Ovoid Chakra Healing Paintings The ‘Ovoid’ paintings are a triptych. Firstly red the corporeal body, Purple and Yellow the place of the mind and Blue the home of the soul Each painting is created using my vibrational colour theory used throughout my works The colours are intended to be felt by the body through vibrations of reflected light of contrasting colour.
Corporeal
oil on canvas 8.8ft x 2.8ft This painting is based in the tangible, the physical body, it is embedded with subtle imagery that speaks to the psyche so that it draws the viewer in. This allows the viewer to stay a while longer with the painting, giving the corresponding chakras an opportunity to open and allow the healing of the body to begin.
Cognition
oil on canvas 8.8" x 2.8" This work is an abstraction of the architecture of the mind. Spandrels, and axons are the structures that physically support our consciousness. They are the Vehicles for our thoughts. The colours associated with the chakras are the Yellow of the solar plexus where we feel the pain pf others, and the purple of the third eye where we connect psychically with others. These are both actions of the mind that allow us to strengthen our family and friend connections.
Otherness
oil on canvas 8.8ft x 2.8ft Pneuma is defined as the Vital Spirit, this is the part of us that communicates with our own higher self, the spirits of others, the creator consciousness. The blue chakra is the throat chakra, it instigates communication be it with our loved ones here on the earth plain or on the spiritual plain.

Evolving
oil on canvas 20" x 16" £POA Evolving is the breaching of the physical body. The work is intended to encourage the body to heal where it is needed. The green represents the heart chakra. The red root chakra is also present in the work in a moment of acceptance and love. The yellows and oranges are here to encourage the sharing of emotions, that allow relaxation in a moment that may be tense and fraught with expectation.
Triplets
oil on canvas 50cm x 100cm £POA This work is made up of star stuff, it is filled with the pinks of relaxation. amongst the swirls of flesh are the tiny sparks of life that sit side by side as sisters or brothers of creation. Here in the void the body is created around the soul.
Seeds
oil on canvas 12" x 8" £POA This work is embedded with the seeds of new beginning's, the reds again connect to the physical body and the root chakra. Here in the womb of creation are many new lives waiting to be experienced through conception and reincarnation.
before the storm 2
oil on canvas 10" x 12" £POA This sea scape is the calm before the storm, its a single moment in time where nothing moves or changes. Emotion is the first step to healing the physical body. Here the blue and orange chakras are opened to allow the overwhelmed to take control of their moment, the moment before anxiety peaks, a chance to stop the storm.
Breathe
oil on canvas 8" by 23.5" £POA This work is the first breath, the unpolluted lungs of a new born, the single moment before the breath where life is yet to be grasped. The silence of a brand new soul coming into our lives. It rips through the physical red boundary of the body and communicates its arrival with its breath and its voice.
Emerging
oil on canvas 50cm x 100 cm £POA This work is the green heart chakra triumphant over the physical primordial needs of the root chakra. We spring as creatures physically formed from our own bodies. Here are white crown chakra is open, our bodies scream for help from others who have gone before us and ease our and path as we grow painfully from one set of circumstances in life to another.
Unformed
oil on canvas 18" x 14" £POA This work is about potential, it is loaded with all the ingredients reform life where it is struggling due to ill health. The red, orange and Yellow chakras are opened and in full force bringing healing to the endocrine system, kidneys especially. The use of red is to promote strength in the vital transport system within our bodies, the flow of healthy blood to restore health where it is needed.
Invasion
oil on canvass 40cm x 40cm £POA The space represented here is a battlefield between cells under attack and the body trying recover from illness, the blue cells are healthy and the gold are cancerous. The darkness of the background heightens the colours of the cells to provide a focus for positive mental attitude.
Second wave
oil on canvass 40cm x 40cm £POA The image represents a further attack on the body as it is trying recover from illness, the blue cells are healthy and the gold are cancerous. The darkness of the background heightens the colours of the cells to provide a focus for positive mental imagery to actively continue the repression of poor health

I Forget
oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm £POA This work is based in memory and dementia in all its forms. it is the beginning of recognition that something is wrong, a repeated story, a forgotten name, an unknown gadget found in the draw. A blank where a memory should be, where information should be, the absence of the right answer. Then the look of fear of a repeated realisation of what was said a moment ago, had been said just a few moments before that.
Memories of summer
oil on canvas 24" x 18" £POA This work is motivated by the random moments of dementia when lucidity slips into distress and confusion of trying to remember a specific summer holiday, the sun, the vague shapes of buildings and the smell of heat on scorched earth.
Mirror Synaesthesia
oil on canvas 50cm x 100cm £POA This work is a an abstraction of the overwhelming feelings experienced by a sufferer of mirror synaesthesia. This reflective energy felt by the sufferer when they can experience the painful conditions of another person near them. The condition is accepted as a wiring fault in the brain that collects information from another sufferer that the individual concerned does not have. it is an empathic brain function not fully explored or exploited by modern medicine or medical professions
Vague
oil on canvas 16" x 12" £POA This piece is the first signs of Alzheimer's where only vague details are available when asked. The brain fog becoming a solid immovable barrier to accessing parts of the recent past. The memories drift on the surface of the conscious mind, within reach but distant and vague enough to be missed in the emptiness of the unrecalled time between question and answer.
Synaesthesia
oil on canvas 8" x 23.5" £POA This work is an exploration of of how the brain re grows new connections during not always because of damage. but in the new growth it often utilises other sensory organs in new ways to collect information in strange ways. It is a healthy type of alternate wiring of the brain.
re-wiring
oil on canvas 12" x 10" sold This painting is an aid to enhance the beginning of recovery from brain disfunction. the focus on the red is intended to stimulate increased blood flow to damaged cells and connections. The blue is an aid to focus the mind on turning he red to blue as the healing progresses.
strangers
oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm £POA This painting is intended to calm the confused mind grasping for recognition amongst the faces of known acquaintances and family members.
the void
oil on canvas 8" x 23" £ POA These are the moments when the memory is becoming hard to trust, when the mind is not just fogged but lost in moments of repeated cycles of thought. This is the place where golden nuggets for truth remain intangible and inaccessible.

Ascension
120cm x 40cm oil on canvass £POA The image is an abstraction of liquid forms that emerge from the body during meditation. The blue represents the throat Chakra a colour that promotes communication either in the physical or the spiritual.
http://www.lunarwedgwood.com/denise-griggs
Stronger Together
STRONGER TOGETHER oil on canvas £POA I have used the sea to represent the idea of universal Consciousness. On the surface it is a tidal moving living thing But ultimately it contains billions of individual droplets that alone have no power. currently in exhibition at Lunar Wedgwood
http://www.lunarwedgwood.com/denise-griggs
Deaths door
DEATH’S DOOR oil on canvass £POA This painting is an abstract interpretation on the Portal to the Afterlife and all its imagined states of being. The painting moves from light to dark Inspired by William Blakes poetry. currently in exhibition at Lunar Wedgwood
http://www.lunarwedgwood.com/denise-griggs
chakra 1
oil on canvas £POA This painting is the place where the intangible meets the ethereal. it is the place of astral traveling where our soul is connected to us only by our chakras. This is where our consciousness pierces the veil
essence
8" x 23" oil on canvas £POA This image is the place of spirit, this is the realm of consciousness where every living creature exists after bodily death. It is also the place where those in the spirit world look down and continue to care for us. The single column of light it the connection between the living and those that have moved on to the next level of consciousness, where they exist as a vast entity, as a whole.
last breath
8" x 23" oil on canvas £POA this image is my model for the spirit world, like droplets of water each soul exist side by side like the sea. The collective consciousness exists in an a state of flux, constantly evolving. Moving through past and future existences the individual souls are reliving and relearning, healing and helping and ultimately beginning again without memory of experience. each time reaching their full potential. This moment signified at their last breath, when they leave their bodies and become at one with everything that has gone before them and everything that will come after. They are omnipotent .
two moons
24" x 18" oil on canvas £1POA This Painting is the exploration of the vibrations in the spiritual universe, the movement of the swing of pendulum as energy expands and contracts causing a shift in the perception of tangibility. The columns raising from the sea are solid anchors from our perceived universe penetrating the unknown sea of consciousness.
Source
8" x 23" oil on canvas £POA This is a place of beginning, an unformed fountain of consciousness freely cascading from the void into existence, the gateway to the mortal. This single moment of re-creation where the soul is freefalling, gathering speed for delivery into a new vessel. The spark of life created form rainbow of energy is the youngest soul filling with chakra energy before it takes its new form.
Good Vibrations
oil on cavass 48" x 60" £POA This image has been created with throat chakra and heart chakra colours specifically to encourage communication with the spirit world. It contains all the information needed to fall into deep meditation and speak with the ancestors. It is deeply relaxing and causes viewers to fall into the imagery and find a welcoming vibration.

Denise Griggs 'Creating the Intangible'

I was born in Liverpool and grew up in Ellesmere Port, a highly industrial area of the Wirral. I have a degree in contemporary fine art from John Moore's University which I achieved by going back into education at the age of 39. I moved with my family in 2009 to the Midlands and have flourished there amongst the potters and the painters of Stoke on Trent. I have worked with vulnerable adults, blind and partially sighted and as a Art Practitioner in Junior Schools. I have also worked on public art as a contributor on ceramic projects.

My work is an exploration of colour as a medical tool and the possibility that the human body can heal itself, aided by reflective colour observation. I hope you can see by observation of deliberately constructed art, how specific colour combinations and imagery that the consciousness can extend beyond normal brain function during mediation and use the sensory organs to retrain the brain to affect the health of the individual. to do this, requires only firm commitment of time with the pieces of work in my intangible series. please take the time to read the information on the works, as they are an extremely important part of my process

My paintings are intended to provoke a mental state of acceptance. This action does encourage the body to heal. Quite often in sick people there is a state of mind that clings to sickness and medical conditions as defining factors of the individual, especially in long term health conditions and in older people. This mindset is a barrier to healing.
In my creations I actively stimulate, a subliminal interaction in the bodies energy by defining the frequency in multiple colour combinations resulting in a series of paintings created deliberately to heal

The reason behind my process is a simple one, I have constantly suffered many health conditions, and sat in many hospital waiting areas and listened to many stories of pain, and misery. All whilst looking at some very ineffective artwork.

I believe as an Artist that artwork should not only be aesthetically pleasing but it should serve a purpose. I have spent my entire adult life creating from necessity, and my brain refuses to create art for art’s sake, my personal history explains the inspiration for my process
love of water in all its forms. I am a spiritual person and this 'intangible' aspect of belief system has become an important part of my process.

My work is an exploration of Mind, Body and Soul. over the last 20 years I have worked hard on developing my own colour theory based on colour vibration and harmonies, to aid in the process of healing. My work is centred around my training as a spiritual healer and specifically the Chakra's using colour frequency to balance the vibration of the body and the brain through the chakras and Meditation.

I am also a working Psychic Artist and demonstrate in spiritualist churches in the Midlands and North West. This is also part of the healing work I do, bringing the images of loved ones back to their families.

In the last four years I have taken up ceramics and I am well on my way to adding a new series of ceramic sculptural works and vessels. I have begun creating with the same use of colour theory used in my paintings for exactly the same reason, to heal the observer. These works are not yet publicly available as they are not yet fully formed. but they are on their way.