Estee Marie turns survival story into healing art

In the right light, Estee Marie’s paintings tell a second story.

Switch on a black light over her signature masterpieces, and images brushed in invisible paint appear, there all along but waiting to be seen. That hidden layer mirrors her own life.

“I am a woman who luckily does not look like what I’ve been through,” Marie said. “I have survived so many things, but I’m here.”

Marie is a 40-year-old educator, chaplain, and grief counselor who is a childhood abuse survivor. After moving from Los Angeles three years ago, she has begun to publicly share her experiences through gallery displays, aiming to connect with other women facing similar struggles.

Her Nigerian parents did not believe in therapy, so she told no one. Instead, she earned straight A’s, ran track, and played varsity sports.

“The expectation was there, so I just had to live up to the expectation,” she said. “Meanwhile, internally, I was crumbling.”

Art was her release. In an eighth-grade creative writing class, she discovered the definition of a metaphor.

“I realized, oh, you could say something without saying something,” Marie said. “That unlocked something in me.”

In college, a blog reader said one of her poems voiced what they could not. Marie realized that her gift for the arts wasn’t solely about her healing but also about helping others. 

In California, the self-described “closeted artist” taught school and built stages for others, hosting Speak, a Glass House Productions spoken word show on Time Warner Cable, and a faith-based open mic called Mouthpiece.

“I was constantly creating spaces for other people to be able to share their voice,” she said. “I was so silent about what was going on.”

When her mother died during the COVID-19 pandemic, the words stopped. She turned to fluid painting.

“I had to learn to go with the flow,” Marie said. “I had to learn to just allow the paint to do what it was going to do.”

Her husband, Brandgier Bradley, watched that shift in 2021. It was the moment, he said, he understood art was not a hobby for his wife.

“She was able to deal with trauma and stress by doing art,” Bradley said. “It gave her excitement and joy and stuff that she needed to function in life.”

Bradley sees what visitors do not. The hours of research, 3 a.m. finishes, and private doubt.

“She has a tendency to doubt herself,” he said. “By the time she gets in front of everybody, she’s already confident in doing it.”

The practice grew into The Heart Pour, her workshop pairing abstract painting and color psychology with writing prompts. In Houston, she found fewer gatekeepers than in Los Angeles and steady support through the Black Houston Creatives Network. A Houston Arts Alliance grant funded Color of Us, her immersive exhibition on colorism inspired by Nina Simone’s 1966 song Four Women.

That project gave her the confidence to present Wave After Wave, a solo exhibition, at Blended Tapestry Art House in September, two days before her 40th birthday. Guests moved from “grave to garden,” from dry bones tied to her poetry collection These Dry Bones, based on the biblical story in Ezekiel 37, to 12 floral portraits in her Birth Month Flower Series.

Her painting, Night Watch, honors the sleepless nights she survived. Above Water reflects her faith.

“There is a representation of the marine spirits that are in the water in this one,” Marie said. “But it’s a representation of being able to stand above that.”

Marie measures the payoff one message at a time.

“It’s for that one woman who sends me the text message that lets me know they feel seen,” she said. “They feel relief.”

As for turning 40, she refuses to spend the next decade asking what if.

“It’s okay. Begin again,” Marie said. “You’re never too old to begin again.”