Niki Zahava is a professional actress and self-taught visual artist from Massachusetts. ?Inspired by my mother?s art, when I was 4 years old and living in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY, I found a box of her oil pastels and outlined the various shapes within the plaster on the walls throughout the apartment. Although colorful, this early exploration as an artist was not appreciated by my mother and thus, my career as a muralist ended. My adult art journey began with digital pastels and digital blending stumps on an iPad. I began to incorporate a few drawing techniques I had learned as an undergraduate student and began creating art digitally. Meditating once again on shapes, art became a new avenue of expression that I found incredibly healing. It became a way for me to express the bubbling inside and a way that keeps me present and focused only on shapes and color. As a survivor of childhood sexual assault and violence, painting and drawing has become a tool and outlet that helps me express my own story. Sometimes that story is hidden behind something whimsical, bold, and colorful, but always the 1st slap of paint comes from deep within and brought out by a note of a song, the colors of the sky or a random shape on the wall. I share this once very private information so that fellow survivors may be inspired to find the healing powers of the arts and so that non survivors may understand how deeply important it is to support the arts both visual and performance based.?
