Stephanie Danielsen

Stephanie Danielsen | 2025

Can you tell us more about the moment you saw your mother’s soul through your inner eyes and how that influenced your artwork?

The first time I saw her soul was almost two months after her death. It was a very difficult time, because my mother and I had always had a very close bond, and I was terrified that I had lost her forever. However, I increasingly felt her presence, so I asked for a sign in front of her picture that would reassure me that she was really there. The next moment, I felt an incredible chill, even though it was in the middle of summer, and I knew it could only be my mother. As I continued to look at her picture, I noticed that the image was transforming through my inner eyes. There were clouds, colours and lots of light penetrating the dark clouds. It was absolutely beautiful, and I knew I had to paint it. So, Mom’s soul became the first one I portrayed. But I quickly realized that I also saw these images in other pictures, mementos or graves, and I’ve been capturing them on paper ever since. Today I can say that this moment completely changed my life. Not only have I been in contact with my mother again since then, but I’ve also been given this gift, which I can combine with my passion, painting. I inherited my creative streak from her. She herself could paint and draw beautifully and taught me at a very early age.

How do you approach the process of painting soul pictures? Is there a specific technique or energy you try to channel during your work?

First, I try to connect with the soul and ask if it’s okay that I paint it. For me, it is very important to treat them respectfully, because they are and remain living energy and not an object without a will. Some souls now even guide me to them specifically, like recently when I felt the urge to go to a cemetery I had never known before. I went straight to the children’s graves, even though I couldn’t have possibly known where they were. I stopped in front of the grave of a little boy and knew he desperately wanted to make contact with me so that I could paint his soul for his parents. He had used me to show them that he was well now and that he was always with them. I always have watercolour pencils in my bag so I can draw spontaneously. On sunny days, you can find me armed with pens and paper at various cemeteries or in the forest cemetery. I then transfer the resulting sketches to my tablet to create a digital image of it. This is especially useful when relatives want to have the portraits printed or made into cards.

Stephanie Danielsen | 2025

What does your art symbolize for you, especially in the context of grief and healing?

When working with souls, energies play a very special role, as they consist of one hundred percent pure energy. This can sometimes be very exhausting, especially in places with multiple souls. I usually invite the souls to reveal themselves to me. Sometimes only a few accept the offer, and sometimes I can’t escape from the souls that insist on being painted. I often don’t even have five minutes to sketch out an initial picture because so many images suddenly pop up in my head at once. But I don’t use any special technique to connect with them, I just approach them very openly.

How has your personal experience with loss shaped your perspective on life and death, and how do you convey that through your art?

For me, my works symbolize the hope of a reunion, that not everything simply ends after death, but that we only change our form by freeing ourselves. The souls usually show themselves with a great deal of light, shining through thick clouds, leaving all the heaviness behind. It is as if a new chapter begins, detached from the worries and fears here on earth. I personally think that this thought is very comforting for many relatives, knowing that their loved ones are not completely lost, but continue to exist in another form and remain part of the family. I am convinced that souls can show us very impressively that love, as poets often write, really does overcome death and that the bond we share with them endures far beyond. That is why so many souls use every opportunity to send signs to their loved ones and try to get in touch with them. They feel our pain and grief and want to ease it for us, to make us understand that we should continue on with them in our hearts and not stand still in our grief. Of course, my paintings can’t simply take away anyone’s grief; the loss is often too great for that. But they offer a chance to look forward again in their grief, to the light, just as the souls themselves do. Here in Germany, we have a saying: “Let go of what you love; if it comes back to you, it belongs to you forever.” I think that’s exactly what the souls show us so impressively. We must let go of their earthly form during our grieving process so that we can learn to accept their new form for ourselves. Only then can we see or feel the signs and learn to live our lives with them, rather than without them, because no soul wants to be forgotten, they want to remain a part of their loved ones. My attitude has changed fundamentally since then. I think I now try more to live each day as if it were my last, but at the same time, I’ve lost my fear of death. This may sound strange, but I appreciate both more than ever today. I think you can sense this in my paintings, which virtually unite life and death. They aren’t gloomy and dark, as the subject of death and dying is so often treated in art, but rather they sparkle with light and joy of life, even though they only come into being after death. My paintings can also be seen as mirrors that show us what awaits us after our death. It is not our end; we merely change our form. At the same time, we should always keep in mind that without life there is no death, but we also need death to truly live.

Stephanie Danielsen

You’ve already exhibited your work in galleries in Germany and will soon be represented in Barcelona. How do you hope your art will impact people during these exhibitions?

Exhibitions are a wonderful opportunity to show the beauty of the portrayed souls and to make them accessible to a wider audience and thus to preserve them from posterity. My main goal is to take away people’s fear of death and show them that they have nothing to be afraid of. On the other hand, exhibitions or fairs offer a great platform for the deceased as a kind of remembrance. Some of the portrayed souls died violently or in complete solitude; they deserve to be remembered and for people to learn about their story. Many souls want that; they want to remain not only a part of their family, but also of the society they lived in for so long and to show that their story matters. So I always tell people who want to buy such a portrait that they not only buy a piece of art but also a piece of the soul I had the honour to paint. For example, you bring home a portrait of a very joyful, happy soul, then you will feel it, your feelings will change when you are in the same room as the painting. I also want to encourage the visitors of the fair to think about their lives, about life in general, and to confront them with death, a theme that is often suppressed in everyday life because it is still a fearful subject for many people.

Can you share any particular piece or experience from your exhibitions that deeply moved you or had a significant impact on you as an artist?

What truly impressed me was a woman in her early 30s whom I had the pleasure of meeting at a fair on the topic of death and dying. During the course of our conversation, she told me that she didn’t have long to live and she had come here with the deep desire to lose her fear of dying, because she was so terrified that everything would suddenly end. She called it “the black hole” into which one disappears and where there will be no reunion. Especially because of her family, she found this thought terrifying, and therefore she saw this fair as her last chance to realize that there might still be a spark of hope, that she does not disappear completely very soon. After we spoke and she looked at my paintings, she began to smile as tears ran down her cheeks, and she said to her husband, who had accompanied her: “Look, I have found what I was searching for. Now I know that I can still stay with you and our children forever.” This really touched my heart and encouraged me to continue sharing my paintings with the public and making them accessible to many people.

Stephanie Danielsen | 2025

What role do you see art playing in the healing process for people dealing with grief or loss?

Art, in whatever form, can play a significant role in the healing process for people who deal with grief and loss because it is a language of its own, one that goes deeper than any normal spoken word. Especially when it comes to grief, many people lack the right words. Dying and grieving people are often unable to express their feelings through words or easily feel that those around them do not understand them. Our language as we know it is very rational, it is controlled by our head, and this quickly reaches its limits when it comes to emotional topics. This is where art comes in. Art is controlled by the heart and switches off the rational mind in the first instance. Here, the focus is not on understanding, not on right or wrong, but primarily on feelings. If it succeeds in deeply touching the viewer, it can then stimulate them to reflect and think about it and thus act as a bridge between heart and head. However, it can not only be a way for those who are grieving to express themselves, but also to become aware of themselves, to sense their own feelings, and to recognize what would be good for them at that moment. As an art therapist, I frequently accompany grieving processes, and it is always fascinating to see how the works change over time and encourage them to engage more deeply with themselves and their grief. Art, whether created by oneself or simply viewed, opens up access to one’s own soul through the heart because only here can lasting healing processes be initiated, something our everyday language often fails to achieve. It sticks in our minds, but it is not very effective if we constantly tell ourselves that we feel better now but our heart, figuratively speaking, still resembles a pile of rubble. When you lose someone you really love, it feels as if you are shattering into a thousand pieces. We will never be as whole as we were before, but art, and I include music and poetry in this, gives us the chance to at least reconnect the broken pieces into a form, so that we not only function, but also rediscover our inner strength and beauty. Art is hereby like the warm ray of sunshine that embraces us and announces calm after a stormy and wet night.