How to use Art as a path to heal, empower and express |Jess Quinn, Forest Aliya, and Emma Francis

Some art catches your eye, and some speaks directly to your soul. In this feature, we bring the voices and visions of three incredible women artists—Jess Quinn, Forest Aliya, and Emma Francis—who remind us that creativity isn’t just about making something beautiful. It’s about feeling deeply, healing through the process, empowering and expressing what words often can’t.

Each artist has taken a unique path: Jess paints flowers’ quiet, intricate beauty in ways that ask us to slow down and see. Forest merges colour, nature, and sound into abstract works that feel like meditative journeys. And Emma dives fearlessly into the emotional chaos of the human experience, using figurative painting to explore identity, mental health, and transformation.

What ties them all together is a shared truth—they create from the inside out. Through joy, pain, curiosity, and courage, they’ve turned their journeys into influential works of art that connect us to something more profound. From nature’s stillness to emotional storms, they show us that art can be a form of self-discovery, a tool for healing, and a bridge between the personal and the universal.

Their stories are more than inspiring—they remind us that when women create from their truth, the world pays attention. More importantly, it begins to feel a little more human.

Jess Quinn: Capturing Stillness and Awe in a Single Petal

From public school art teacher to award-winning painter, Jess Quinn’s journey into full-time art is as natural as the flowers she paints. Based in Des Moines, Iowa, Jess left her teaching role in 2014 and never looked back. Her large-scale oil paintings of botanicals invite viewers to slow down and look—look at the natural world.

Jess doesn’t just paint flowers; she reveals their complexity, grace, and movement. Each piece is layered with rich colour and fine detail, offering more than just a visual experience—it’s a gentle reminder to pause and appreciate the beauty that often goes unnoticed.

“In 2017, I had my first solo exhibit. That was my only goal,” Jess recalls. “But that moment taught me to dream bigger.”

Now working from her studio at Mainframe Studios—a creative hub filled with over 200 artists—Jess continues to evolve her practice while sharing her love for art through private and group lessons. Her paintings are meditative, luminous, and deeply personal. They remind us that the most potent experiences sometimes come from simply paying attention.

I aim to create a sense of wonder and connection with the beauty in everyday life. My hope is that my art encourages others to slow down and find meaning in the small moments that make up our everyday lives.

To learn more about Jess, click on the links below.

Forest Aliya: Weaving Colour, Sound, and Nature into Emotion

For Forest Aliya, art is an immersive, sensory experience. Raised in Tennessee and now based in Nevada City, California, Forest blends colour theory, abstract expressionism, and sound healing into deeply atmospheric pieces. Her work reflects a spiritual ecosystem—paintings infused with nature, soundscapes, mushrooms, moon cycles, animals, and dreamlike forms.

Forest describes her experience as synesthetic—she sees colour in sound and feels music in her brushstrokes. “I see harmonies of colour and hear harmonies of sound,” she explains. “It’s a whole-body experience.” Her work invites viewers to do the same—to step into a symphony of sight and feeling.

After earning an MFA and completing a sound healing certification, Forest’s work has been featured in exhibitions across the U.S. and even appears in public murals throughout California. Her use of abstraction, layered symbolism, and raw emotional texture creates a kind of visual poetry that speaks to healing, community, and connection.

“I was born an artist,” she says. “I’ve always been attracted to colour and emotion. The inspiration comes from within.”

Forest’s art is like a deep breath in a noisy world—fluid, meaningful, and alive.

My compositions highlight not just one but many of my experiences in one space. I know my work is complete when I look at it and have no more thoughts.

To learn more about Forest, visit the links below.

Emma Francis: Painting Through the Storm of Emotion and Identity

Based in Montreal but raised in Vancouver, Emma Francis paints with raw honesty, using the human figure to explore themes like madness, queerness, grief, and transformation. Their journey into art was not easy. It was shaped by a difficult childhood, mental illness, and years of isolation—but also by resilience and a profound need to express the complexity of emotion.

Emma’s figurative paintings don’t aim for realism—they lean into the surreal, capturing the shifting states of power, identity, and anxiety beneath everyday life’s surface. With bold colour, layered symbolism, and dreamlike compositions, Emma paints emotional landscapes as much as physical ones.

“Art has been the most consistent way I’ve made sense of myself,” they share. “I used to fear rejection so much that I didn’t apply for anything for years. But eventually, I realised that loneliness is worse than rejection.”

Using digital collages as starting points, Emma creates deeply layered works that speak to their lived experience as a queer artist navigating mental illness and identity politics in a chaotic world. Their job isn’t just emotional—it’s urgent, reflective, and deeply human.

As a painter I lean toward the expressive and surreal, blurring the line between internal psychological landscapes and our embodied existence.

To learn more about Emma, click on the links below.

From the still beauty of a flower to the chaotic swirl of identity and emotion, these three artists have shown us the power of painting from the inside out. Jess, Forest, and Emma invite us to slow down, look closer, and feel more deeply with their work and our lives.

What we’ve learned from them is simple but profound: art is a process of becoming. It’s a mirror, a question, a release. When artists honour what’s true inside themselves, their work becomes more than visual—healing, empowering, and connective.

These women are not just painters. They are storytellers, space-holders, and truth-speakers. And through their art, they invite us to do the same: to feel it all, express it boldly, and trust that beauty is found in the most honest places.

Stay tuned to the Women in Arts Network for more stories amplifying diverse, powerful contemporary art voices. Visit our website and follow us on Instagram.