A’driane Nieves

Self-taught visual artist, writer, and mental health advocate, A’driane Nieves (or Addy), was raised by an abusive, controlling father. She suffered from post-partum depression after the birth of her second son and shortly after, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Today Addy is a full-time artist whose work focuses on trauma, healing, and how both shape who we are and who we become. She “empowers women to transform brokenness in their lives into power and beauty, and amplifies the voices and experiences of those marked as Other in society.” This is her story from broke to beautiful.

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Some things we talk about…

  • The abuse she suffered at the hands of her father
  • How she made it through college while raising two kids as a single mom
  • Finding painting and how painting saved her sanity
  • The path to becoming a self-taught full-time visual artist
  • Learning to promote and sell her work and
  • The first thing anyone can do to help heal trauma through art

“I want to encourage people who don’t think they have a voice, to know that they do have one. I want to encourage myself and others to express ourselves and present it to the world in some way because we deserve to be seen and heard.”

“Painting gives me the space and freedom to simply be. I can unload everything that I have into a painting, into a piece. It really has saved my sanity.”

let’s connect. 

(almost) weekly letters from my heart about what’s on my mind. the business and the personal. 

daphne cohn