Sunshine Coast based artist Lisa Davis has always loved to draw and create; however, it wasn’t until a backpacking holiday through Europe in her late twenties that Lisa really discovered her passion to learn more about art. Soon after returning to Australia, Lisa enrolled in a Diploma of Visual Arts. She held her first solo exhibition after completing her diploma and began conducting painting and drawing workshops on the Sunshine Coast in 2001. As early as her time as an art student, Lisa had an interest in colour theory and colour therapy. Her early works were bold in colour and rich in symbolism, quite often ‘in your face’ and as comment on current society. Through her research into colour theory and colour therapy, Lisa produced works using colour as symbols to portray an emotion or evoke an emotional response in the viewer, and also experimented with the theories of movement within colour as described in Kandinsky’s book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912). It was on these theories the Power of Colour workshop was developed to help artists ‘free up’ when their work had become tight and rigid, and also to help beginners realize their creative and artistic potential by getting them to just paint.
Lisa continued to work as an Artist while working at her day job in arts administration, holding various workshops on weekends, attending art markets, and also volunteering for Noosa and Gold Coast City Council Galleries and for The Burleigh Arts Group Inc., for which she was a founding member. Lisa founded Kaiviti as a business in 2006, working as an artist producing artworks for exhibitions and commissions, facilitating art workshops, and consulting on art and colour for the home and for business premises. After the GFC hit somewhat brutally, Lisa enrolled in a Bachelor Degree in Arts, with a double major in psychology and sociology. Lisa completed her degree with a GPA of 6.5 and an academic award, and Kaiviti has evolved over time to have a stronger focus on creative practices as a source of wellbeing.
While the ideas on art and wellbeing have been incorporated into earlier workshops, since Lisa completed her studies in psychology, wellbeing through art has now become a major focus. With this new knowledge the workshops and programs have been further developed, with a specific focus on helping those in need of direction, emotional support, psychological stability and general wellbeing. Lisa continues to paint and spent the last few years researching extensively into Art Therapy, its theories and approaches, to discover where her Art for Wellbeing methods and theories sit amongst the vast continuum of art therapy practices. Her methods could be categorised as Experiential Process-oriented arts therapy, although the ideas for Art for Wellbeing emerged and evolved through art making and from an arts and spiritual perspective.
Lisa’s research has included case studies on the effectiveness of the Art4Wellbeing program as validation of her methods, with 100% of participants who completed the program stating they have benefited from the program. She currently works as an Artist, workshop and events facilitator, and as an Art for Wellbeing facilitator and wellbeing coach, helping people to discover their own unique creative power in the hope to improve their wellbeing, and their life outcomes. She has also completed certification in Sacred Space Holding and includes intuitive sound and vibrational healing, to offer additional healing practices, bringing a more holistic approach to her work.
“The further I inquire into the connection between art and wellbeing, and see art working to heal peoples lives, the more rewarding my work is and the more convinced I am of the spiritual facets of art and the positive consequences of art making” – Lisa Davis