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Hope Reaching Through the Storm

My artwork is a thought-provoking piece that acknowledges the struggles of mental health, trauma and the importance of community in supporting someone who is struggling. My piece features people reaching out to help children that are struggling, while they are using the bison as a driving force forward. The bison silhouette symbolizes the strength and protection that is required to pull people through difficult chapters in their life.

The colorful bison head is leading the way to the TOBA centre. Having the person offering help grasp the bison’s horn symbolizes that strength and respect are essential for moving forward—values crucial for a child to share, heal, and grow.

The middle person, leaning down to offer a helping hand, represents the importance of community in providing help and a figurative link to appropriate resources, the colorful bison head. A child needs to know they are always supported by those around them and by being provided a safe place to share. This is symbolic of the TOBA centre and what it provides to children enduring difficult situations. This conveys a powerful message about reaching out for support, resilience and human connection.

The children reaching out without looking up, are dealing with grief, trauma or depression. This represents a child’s need for help being mired in uncertainty. The head down of the child represents the lack of confidence that someone in that situation will likely feel. The hand reaching out represents the strength from within required to create change.

The background of the image represents the journey from dark to light. The dark, around the child that is struggling, lightens towards a brighter background towards the head of the bison. The brightness represents the positive growth that will surround a child that is provided with a helping hand.

The diversity of the people represents the different walks of life that require support and are supported by the TOBA centre.

I designed this to promote the importance of friends, family, and community reaching out to others to give them courage. People who are struggling may not understand the trauma and it may be so constant that it may feel normal or that there is no way out. A strong community helps children build an understanding that what they are going through is not their struggle to handle alone.

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Artist: Josée Agnès Rémillard