I started painting after a near-death experience , these are the worlds that followed

I began painting in 2015 after a near-death experience completely changed the direction of my life.

Since then, my work has developed into a visual language of organic forms, cellular structures, pathways, symbols and recurring markings that often appear before I consciously understand them.

I paint intuitively, somewhere between nature, memory, consciousness and the unseen.

Some of my more recent work includes Soul Frequencies , portraits that don’t depict a person’s physical face, but instead try to translate their presence, character and energy into colour, movement and form.

I’m sharing my work here because I’d love for it to reach people who genuinely connect with it ,collectors, curators, or simply people who enjoy discovering unusual contemporary art.

You can see more of my work here:

www.nicolemeeuws.com

Happy to answer questions about the paintings, the process, or the story behind them

I began painting after a near-death experience. Eleven years later, I’m still trying to understand where the imagery comes from.

I started painting in 2015, directly after a near-death experience changed the direction of my life.

What has interested me ever since is not simply what I paint, but the way the imagery arrives.

Certain forms keep recurring without being consciously planned: cellular structures, pathways, branching forms, dots, spirals, symbols and markings that sometimes feel more like fragments of a visual language than conventional abstraction.

Only years later did I begin noticing curious visual similarities between some of these spontaneous markings and very early forms of human symbol-making and writing. I’m not suggesting that I am somehow painting an ancient language, I’m much more interested in the question this raises.

Why do certain forms seem to recur across cultures, consciousness and time?

Are artists drawing from accumulated visual memory? Archetypal forms? Pattern recognition? The unconscious? Or is intuitive image-making simply capable of producing unexpected parallels with things we have never consciously studied?

More recently I’ve begun creating Soul Frequencies, portraits in which I deliberately don’t paint the person’s physical appearance. Instead, I try to translate my perception of them into colour, structure, movement and symbolic form.

After nearly eleven years of painting, I feel less interested in providing answers than I am in following the question:

Where does an image come from before the conscious mind has found words for it?

I’d genuinely be interested in hearing how other artists, curators and people working with contemporary art think about this.

My work is here for context:
www.nicolemeeuws.com

What if we're not just looking at reality...

What if we're projecting it?

Not in the fairytale way people talk about manifestation.

I mean through every belief, every fear, every memory and every expectation we've ever carried.

Science already tells us the brain filters reality. It constantly decides what we notice and what we ignore, looking for evidence that matches what we already believe.

Metaphysics goes one step further.

It suggests that consciousness is fundamental. That our thoughts, emotions and the energy we hold aren't separate from reality, they're part of it. The frequency we live in shapes what we resonate with, what we notice, who we meet, the choices we make, and the experiences that unfold. Like a tuning fork, we tend to resonate with what we're already carrying within us.

Maybe that's why two people can live through exactly the same event and walk away with completely different realities.

The world outside may not have changed.

Maybe the projector inside did.

This started because I love Greece. and because Greece is my home. I also feel more people should start asking the real questions, and go deeper in their own research not just believe what the news is saying,…I’ve spent years travelling around the islands, and the more I read, the more I realised there are parts of the story I’d never thought about.

Over the years there have been devastating fires in places such as Penteli, Rafina and Mati, and now recently Paros, amongst many others. In some documented cases, parts of burned land were later reclassified or exempted from reforestation under the legal framework, allowing certain types of development.

What surprised me most wasn’t that.

It was how difficult it is to follow what happened afterwards

There are very few publicly documented cases with confirmed land sale prices. Most property sales are private, making it incredibly difficult to trace what happened financially after a fire. I also found that many older reports and references are now difficult to locate online. Some links no longer work, others have been archived, and the public record can feel incomplete. That doesn’t prove anything by itself, it simply makes researching the history much harder. And for all of us that seek the truth, almost impossible.

Now there’s the latest case on Paros.

According to public reports, Greece’s Fire Service is investigating the recent wildfire, which investigators believe may have started in or near the island’s landfill. As part of the investigation, Mayor Kostas Bizas, the Deputy Mayor responsible for sanitation, a waste-management contractor and a municipal employee were detained, later released, and the investigation is continuing. No conclusions have yet been reached, and the legal process is still ongoing.

I’m not accusing anyone of wrongdoing, and I’m not suggesting anyone is guilty. I’m simply interested in understanding how tourism, infrastructure, environmental protection, land use and rebuilding all fit together after these events.

For those of you who know Greece well or live here:

How do we protect the places we love while making sure development, conservation and transparency go hand in hand?

I’d genuinely be interested in hearing from anyone with reliable public sources, historical information or personal knowledge of how this process works.

I can't tell you how good it felt to finally leave Paros Island after 15 years, in all seasons. Over the years, I watched it change. In my opinion, it became flooded by greed, cheap infrastructure, overpriced restaurants, and expensive clothing shops selling things that, if you look a little deeper, you can often find much cheaper elsewhere.

In my experience, the hospitals looked neglected, with very little investment or noticeable improvements for the elderly or the sick. At the same time, more and more enormous villas seemed to appear, many of which, according to people working in construction that I spoke to, were being built as cheaply as possible while being sold for millions. Whether that's true or not, it was certainly the impression I was left with. Forget about quality or putting real love into the buildings. Just build on top of each other and squeeze in as many people as possible.

Money and greed.

Thankfully, there are still some genuinely heart-centred people left. Some of the locals living on the edge of poverty in Paros are among the kindest people I've met.

What I found interesting was that some wealthy expats, people who only use their houses once or twice a year, and some businesses that I felt were taking advantage of tourists, often seemed offended when people questioned high prices or poor value. Overpriced supermarkets, overcrowded restaurants, and, in my opinion, disappointing food. Other parts of Greece are famous for their food. For me, Paros never was.

I honestly feel I wasted many years hoping things would get better there. Instead, I watched a culture develop that, to me, felt more interested in status and wealth than in community or compassion.

It no longer felt like the Greece I had fallen in love with. To me, it became a Greece without a heart.

Thankfully, there are still many incredibly beautiful places elsewhere in Greece, with waterfalls, nature, stunning sea views, and communities where, in my experience, the Greek soul is still very much alive. No regrets, just glad I was able to leave and find the real Greece again.

Paros They Don't Show You

The Paros They Don't Show You

People come to Paros expecting paradise. Whitewashed villages. Turquoise seas. Peace. Simplicity.

But that isn't the whole story.

Behind the postcards, Paros is being consumed by greed. Luxury villas replace untouched hillsides. Concrete replaces nature. Prices soar beyond the reach of many locals. The quiet island people once fell in love with is disappearing beneath endless construction, traffic, and overdevelopment.

Progress isn't the problem.

Greed is.

When profit becomes more important than people, nature, and animals, a place begins to lose its soul.

One of the most heartbreaking examples concerns the island's stray animals. Animal welfare volunteers have long raised concerns about the lack of support for shelters. They have also publicly alleged that unpaid financial obligations left a shelter unable to continue operating, resulting in its closure and leaving many dogs without a home, dependent on volunteers for survival, and many dogs,..homeless without any food,..... Whatever the legal or political arguments may be, vulnerable animals should never pay the price.

Visitors rarely see this side of Paros. They see the perfect photographs, not the environmental pressure, the disappearing character, or the growing divide between appearance and reality.

Paradise isn't something you build with concrete.

It's something you protect.

Before you fall in love with the image of Paros, ask what lies behind the painted white walls. and whoever is in charge,... ask the real questions,... whats going wrong? and who is paying the price...

Because once the soul of an island is sold, no amount of money can ever buy it back.