How Painting Helped an Artist Turn Migraine Pain Into a Creative Outlet
Key takeaways:
Priya Rama uses painting to cope with migraines, turning visual auras into art.
Her work resonates with others and offers validation and inspiration to the migraine community.
Priya promotes art as a healing tool and encourages other migraine sufferers to find creative outlets.
Priya Rama began getting migraines when she was about 7 years old. But it would be years before she got a diagnosis. The excruciating pain in her head, combined with full-body fatigue, forced her to stay in bed for entire days waiting for the feeling to pass.
“Sometimes, if my stomach was upset and I was vomiting, we’d conclude it was something I ate,” says Priya, a 56-year-old artist who grew up in India and now lives in Mason, Ohio. “The only solution was to lock myself away in some room somewhere and have it run its course.”
A migraine diagnosis gave her a starting point
In her mid-20s, she got a migraine diagnosis in the U.S. She started getting treatment. But even the latest treatments haven’t eliminated her migraines.
What has changed is how Priya deals with these often-debilitating pains. About a decade ago, after a migraine, she began to paint. She wanted to capture the colors and patterns that swirled in her head during those dark moments.
Art became a therapeutic escape
Soon, Priya was putting brush to canvas after every attack, creating vibrant, often beautiful abstract images from some of her life’s ugliest moments.
“Painting didn’t get rid of the pain, but it did help psychologically,” she says. “It felt like the angry noise in my head would go away.”
Priya’s headaches have sometimes forced the married mother of two to cut herself off from her family and friends. She’ll shelter in a dark, quiet room until the pain has passed.
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“I used to feel frustrated. I felt sorry for myself and felt upset that I was letting down the people around me.”
Painting has helped with that, too. As she notes on her website, it allows her to transform “pain into beauty,” which is also the title of a collection of her work.
“It’s been really soul-enriching that I have something to show for times that are otherwise lost, times I don’t want to acknowledge even happened,” she says. “It’s like I have mementos of each migraine. I don’t view my paintings as horror stories, rather as something special happening inside my body.”
Turning migraine auras into art
For Priya, migraines were always more than headaches. Her episodes often included auras. They were visual disturbances that occurred before or during her migraines. These included blurred vision, flashes of light, and zigzag patterns.
That’s what she turned into art.
Research and art history suggest other painters, including Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh, may have included migraine auras in their art. In the 1980s, the British Migraine Association held an annual art competition that asked contestants to illustrate their migraine experience. A collection of 545 of these works are on display in London at the Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library.
Today, art therapy is used as a tool for managing migraines. And while no one told Priya that art would help with her migraines, she has always been artistic. She has a master’s degree in art education and has long enjoyed painting, particularly landscapes. Still, it took her a while to realize that what she was experiencing during migraines could be translated to art.
“I took it for granted. I thought for everyone with migraines, seeing colorful images was something that happened to them, too,” she says.
“It was always inside me, these colors, but I never took it seriously.”
Helping the migraine community feel validated
Painting was kind of like journaling for Priya. She’d document different migraines, recreating the colors and images she’d seen. Over time, she says, her visions have become more vivid. In some of her works, she zooms in on a particular part of her experience. The resulting works have a feeling of texture and movement.
For observers, part of the enjoyment of the work is interpreting the abstract shapes in the art: Is that a tree? A meadow? Under the sea?
When Priya began painting, she’d keep the finished canvases in her home. After accumulating multiple works, she put on an art exhibition. She also began selling her work at art shows, where others with migraines were eager to share their own experiences.
“They see my work, and they feel validated,” Priya says.
She encouraged them to find their own creative release. “It could be anything: Painting, gardening, baking. You just have to find what works for you.”
Priya has also worked with art therapy students at the University of Cincinnati. She discussed what helps her and showed ways to use art with the migraine community.
Today, Priya has between 5 and 10 migraines per month — almost half the amount she used to have. Another bit of good news? After a migraine attack, she remembers the colors and images that ran through her head more than the pain.
“I used to be sad, angry. ‘Why me? Why now? What’s triggering this?’ I was very ‘woe is me,’” she says. “Now, I look at [migraines] as another challenge in life and just a part of me.”
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