Neha Mehta
Reborn Through the Brushstrokes
When life paused my path and pain clouded my purpose, I picked up a paintbrush—not as an artist, but as someone desperately seeking light. What began as a way to distract myself during a health crisis evolved into a sacred dialogue between my soul and the canvas. Art wasn’t just a hobby; it became my mirror, my sanctuary, my rebirth. In moments when nothing else made sense, it was colour that comforted me, shapes that carried my sorrow, and silence that spoke the loudest. This is the story of how art didn’t just change me—it saved me.
Was there a defining moment in your life when you realised art wasn’t just something you did, but something that was transforming you?
The first time I tried my hand at art was in 2016, when I had to take a break from my job as a content writer due to some health issues. It was the very beginning of my career, and this was extremely tough for me to come to terms with the fact that I had to take a break at the most crucial time of my career. I tried painting during that time, but I soon became frustrated because my heart wanted to return to my job. But destiny had different plans for me. Prolonged episodes of unsettling health issues due to a chronic illness made me pick colours again in 2020 when my health issues didn’t settle, and I left the corporate world to prioritise my health, as it was the need of the hour at that time. So, I started painting again just to keep myself sane while I struggled with deteriorating mental and physical health. I painted almost every single day for a year after that, and it wouldn’t be an understatement to say I was reborn due to art. Amidst the hospital visits, medications and injections, the time when I was in a state to paint became my reason to not give up on life.
How has your art helped you rediscover or redefine yourself—emotionally, spiritually, or even as a woman?
For someone who has experienced too many traumas in just one lifetime to handle, art came to me as an answer to all the prayers and as a means of help for the cries I made to the higher power. It gave me the space to be who I was/am with all my emotions, highs and lows. And that’s something I admire about art. It’s patiently waiting for you to come home to yourself, like you never left it in the first place. As a woman, it keeps me connected to my feminine energies and has helped me to trust the Universe, that yes, there’s a bigger picture as to why I am here. And I get to see that every day when I’m painting.
What role did creativity play during your most difficult or uncertain times? Did it feel like a form of healing or escape?
My art is a journey of healing and coming to life again when I had lost hope and was almost on the verge of giving up. The colours gave me a space to vent out my unexpressed emotions. I’ve seen them evolving, growing and becoming who I am, and all the things that I resonate with art. After being in depression for so many years, all I was looking for in life was some peace, which I couldn’t find anywhere else. Time stopped for me when I began to find the calmness I was searching for in art. And because I knew what a long and exhausting journey it was to reach peace, my paintings revolve around all the things that give me peace. I want the onlooker to feel a sense of peace and calmness the moment they set their eyes on my work.
Can art truly heal? And if so, how has it healed or changed you personally?
I had many questions about why I was chosen to suffer so much because of my health, but one day, when I sat down and looked at all the paintings that I had made during that time, everything started making sense to me. I only had one answer; maybe I was destined to be an artist, and I kept running away from my calling. That was the day when I forgot who I was before, and what I was doing earlier, and started creating my world, which revolved just around art. I took time to understand the different mediums and experimented as much as I could to familiarise myself with the styles of different artists, and started teaching art to kids to sustain myself. And during my last three years of journey, I have made a balance between my life as an artist and an art educator. And there hasn’t been a single day I haven’t learnt a thing or two in the process.
If you had to describe your life’s transformation through art in just one word, what would it be and why?
Nothingness…
Quoting the words of a Persian poet rumi here,
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,
There is field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
The field here is my art, where I disconnect from everything around me and yet I am connected to the world outside, but with a different lens. Something so divine that only a devotee and a disciple can feel its true essence.