Popular Instagram artist Mari Andrew is bringing the millennial experience to life one drawing at a time. With her account , Seattle-born Andrew, 31, has amassed over 850k followers with her illustrations that comment on heartbreak, grief and anxiety.
Her drawings became a form of therapy for the illustrator, who last year suffered guillane-barre syndrome, a near-fatal illness where the body's immune system attacks the nervous system, that left her temporarily paralysed. After a month-long recovery Andrew was able to walk again, and eventually draw. She spoke to SBS Life about turning pain into art.
You're giving a workshop on turning pain into art, how do you use your drawing to process it?
I joke that I'm just ticking off the checkboxes of painful life experiences: loss of a family member, more breakups than I can count, near-fatal illness, trauma, depression, and great uncertainty. I'm collecting them all! My personality type is that which can recognise pain as part of a whole and full life, though; I don't see pain as an objectively terrible thing that makes your life worse. In a lot of ways, I think it makes a life richer.
Expressing myself certainly helps. I don't think it's for everyone, but self-expression is a way to process really difficult and complex feelings that I find to be very helpful, and now helpful for others as well.
‘Adulting’ is all about showing up for yourself.
Your pieces are often very funny! How important is it to you that you use humour to deal with personal struggles?
Humour is our best tool to get through our pain, and to get ‘over’ ourselves. I have a very emotional personality type and can sometimes get totally lost in my own feelings. Humour is how I pull myself back out again, time after time.
Your work is all about growing up – what is the biggest lesson you’ve learned?
‘Adulting’ is all about showing up for yourself. That can happen in so many ways, but it's about growing into your responsibility for your actions, for your words, and for your own happiness.
Is there a specific example you can give of a time when you’ve struggled with being an adult?
Whenever I'm out of my integrity. Meaning, I cancel last-minute on a friend, I don't do the right thing, I date someone who doesn't treat me very well, I take on too many projects at once. That feels like failing at ‘adulting’. I think mature people know themselves really well and know what they're capable of, and deserving of. As I grow more into myself, and take a lot of time to reflect and learn about others and myself, I become a much more integral person who makes better decisions that reflect what I hope to become.
How important has Instagram been for kick-starting your career?
It's been everything. I tried for so long to get published in other ways, and nothing really took off. I'm so grateful to this platform, even though of course I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it! I think everyone feels ambivalent about social media to some extent. Of course, it comes with many challenges as well – a big one is that I write vulnerably and honestly about things that have happened to me, and a lot of people see that as something to fix. That drives me nuts.
Your work is often about dating and relationships – is it all autobiographical? What do romantic partners think of your illustrations?
I only write about relationships that happened in the past, so I don't think it ever bothers the current guy too much! It is all autobiographical, yes, or sometimes based on a feeling I've discussed with friends. I've been dating for 12 years so I have a lot of experience!
Mari Andrew's first book, Are We There Yet? is on sale now. Mari will be visiting Australia for the first time this June for five exclusive events with .
