I Can Paint Myself Flowers
Simone Sequeira of STUDIO SIMMI makes art from the places where cracks meet colour. Neuroqueer and Aussie-born to immigrant parents, she once lived in the black-and-white world of a mech eng grad before psych care cracked her open. Group and one-on-one art therapy became her lifeline, handing her a sense of purpose and a reason to soldier on through making - messy, grounding, and gloriously imperfect.
Her practice - lino-carving, palette-knife painting, and mixed media - refuses to sit quietly. It flips fragility into resilience and silence into visibility. In 2023, she also faced the big C, a season that sharpened her radical self-acceptance and her knack for falling forward.
Now STUDIO SIMMI is carving up a storm with creative prescriptions: work that’s functional, accessible, affordable, and disruptive. Her art pokes, laughs, and connects - hoping to spark vulnerable conversations, raising divergent voices in mental health, and reminding us all to play with our hands again and prioritise mindful moments in our everyday to-do lists!
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Following on from last year’s Crack Pot, this work continues the Unbroken Series and its exploration of vessels cracked, mended, and reimagined. A classic Indo-Western vase - shaped by colonisation yet tied to Goan heritage - is repaired with gold and repurposed to hold brushes where flowers might bloom. Carnations whisper queer pride, while gilded seams turn damage into strength and silence into resilience.
The work asks what care looks like when illness is invisible. Flowers often arrive with physical sickness, yet psychosocial struggles are too often met with absence. Here, brushes rise in their place: symbols of creativity as sustenance, recovery, and resistance. It serves as a reminder that we can gift ourselves the grace to blossom again despite our fractures. My creative practice has helped me redirect chaotic energy into processing trauma, finding an authentic voice, and embracing the call to help others navigate recovery.