July 12, 2018
Ernesto Atkinson, ATR-LPC graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014 and founded Integration Healing/Alivio Integral, a bilingual private practice, in 2017. Atkinson is active in his chapter the Wisconsin Art Therapy Association (WATA) and works to spread awareness about the profession throughout the larger Milwaukee area, “engaging the community in art making and offering information about what art therapy is and what it does for the community.” He values his membership because “AATA has helped me connect with more art therapists in the community, which makes me feel deeply connected and believe in what I do.”
Atkinson works with clients from diverse backgrounds and describes his practice as “a nonjudgmental, multicultural connection between an artistic and therapeutic approach to self-integrative healing according to the participant’s needs.” As an art therapist, he says, “I have come to learn and understand that our first language is art. I believe that art is embedded in us. It represents itself in its colors, sounds, spirits, emotions, textures, values, principles, perspectives, hate and love. Art therapy is effective because ‘When Words Fail, Art Speaks.’”
Art, accessibility, and diversity are areas of passion for Atkinson. “I think if art therapy can be more accessible to all populations and communities around us, we can create a more colorful society. I hope that the art therapy community continues growing and adding a more colorful smile to the world.”
“El Sueño Azul/ The Blue Dream” by Ernesto Atkinson. Oil and acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas. 2015.
Artist’s statement: “My artistic works explore a parallel connection within individuals and their eclectic existence. My work is developed through ‘The still not language of an idea’ that for me are all my thoughts in the form of sketches, sketches that are learning to have a defined voice, strength and power to be an incredible painting. I believe that everything and anything can become a source of inspiration and creation. Ugliness has its beauty and poverty its wealth. The uneducated have education, the unloved have love, and the unhappy can claim happiness.
Through a personal dialogue between my emotions, experiences and points of view of the world, I explore transcendence and invite my audience to experience a moment of wonder. I encourage viewers to observe, question and ingest a sublime light of love, but above all to explore self-understanding and the virtues of oneself by presenting their own responses and projections through my conceptual images, brushstrokes, textures and colors that are created in my artwork.”