Lauren Chan

I have always enjoyed art since I was young; what started as a hobby became a passion for painting people, fantasy, scenery, celestial beings, and abstract paintings. Painting has provided freedom from the mental illnesses that I had endured for many years. In the summer of 2021, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety that halted my university studies and I had to take a two-year hiatus. The panic attacks got worse and then in September of 2021, while I was battling depression, my grandmother passed due to a heart attack. I felt as if life was meaningless, and like I was running on an empty fuel gauge. Then, suddenly, I wanted to try to paint again and to feel like living, and I wondered if painting would help this melancholy. With the first brushstroke of pink paint smeared onto my blank canvas, I felt a spark light up like when I first picked up a brush when I was a teenager. Feeling the pressure lift off my fingertips and onto that canvas felt freeing and satisfying. After that I used art as a therapy, and I felt alive again. Now I am two years in remission. I feel like my grandma was watching over me and told me to pick that paintbrush back up again. If she were here today, I would say, “Thank you and I love you.” She is the reason I wanted to paint once again and to live again.