“I create intuitive, expressive artworks rooted in nature that help people reconnect with their authentic selves through colour, movement, and meaning.”
Where Art, Intuition, and
Wild Creative Freedom Meet…
About Jen Hollstein
Hey! I’m Jen - expressive artist, muralist, Dance Therapist in training, musician, writer, and pro-diver with a heart full of nature, colour, and adventure!
My creative practice is rooted in intuition, emotion, eco-ethics, and the belief that creativity is not just something we do for fun - although, don’t get me wrong, it is SO much fun - but something that offers a powerful pathway to knowing who you truly are.
I grew up in northeast Scotland scrambling around wild coastlines and ancient forests in a family of nature-loving creatives whose idea of fun is body-boarding in December in the bitterly cold North Sea!
Today, I live and create in sub-tropical Australia in a place called Kardabai (otherwise known as Gladstone) on Gooreng Gooreng, Gurang, Byellee, and Taribelang Bunda Country. Here, I am deeply influenced by the coral reefs and tropical landscapes of the Great Barrier Reef and Central Queensland Region - oh and the sun, I love the sun!
From Diver to Artist
(The Plot Twist I Never Expected)
Before making a living out of my art, I was a professional diver. I worked across the world - in parts of East & West Africa, the Caribbean & Central America, the Mediterranean, and on the Great Barrier Reef - until a sudden and severe neoprene allergy derailed everything.
I lost my career, my identity, my community, and regular access to the watery world that I called home…
During the 2020 lockdown, painting became my way back to myself. It gave me space to process collapse, meet my deep need for adventure while surrounded by concrete, and rediscover who I was without diving. That moment sparked the intuitive, expressive art practice I have now designed my life around.
Neurodivergence, Intuition & Creative Freedom
Committing to an intuitive practice has allowed me to embody freedom after a lifetime of masking my authentic self, and struggling with the consequential impact on my mental health. Exploring my sensory experience through honest self-enquiry within the safety of my studio has enabled me to come to terms with the fact that my neurodivergence had been shaping my life all along.
Becoming acquainted with the language of neurodivergence has vastly transformed how I am able to show up in the world, and my ongoing deep dives into creativity keep me in tune with who I really am. It’s not that I don’t struggle anymore - I still feel everything intensely - but at least I know now that creativity is fundamental to my wellbeing, enabling me to celebrate some of the more wonderful parts about existing in this brain.
These days, I like to think of my particular kind of neurodiversity as looking down a kaleidoscope and seeing every colour possible shining back at you, only with a bunch of extra yellows thrown in there, plenty of sparkly stuff, and textures just begging to be touched!
Expressive Arts & Embodiment as Therapeutic Pathways
Alongside my expanding knowledge in neurodivergence and my academic background in Cultural Anthropology & Art History, I draw on professional development training in trauma-informed Expressive Arts Therapy and Dance & Movement Therapy (ongoing) in my work with community.
In these sessions, I support clients to explore their unique sense of creativity to:
nurture wellbeing through accessing the flow state (nervous system regulation)
enhance self-awareness through embodied creative methods
support self-esteem and empower agency through regular practice
build resilience (practicing response-ability and deactivation through playful, creative adventures)
increase capacity (fostering social networks and entrepreneurial employment opportunities)
Art that Speaks to the Soul
Just as guided sessions help people to reconnect with their authentic selves, my paintings and murals offer that same sense of belonging and resonance as touchstones that bring us back to ourselves.
Symbolism, movement, and inner visions flow through expressive brushstrokes, vibrant layers of colour, and shimmering metallics, giving form to the intangible. Each piece evokes an energy - kinda like magic - that transforms the spaces we inhabit and the stories we live by.
My art is collected and commissioned by:
People seeking meaningful art with emotional, symbolic, or spiritual depth
Businesses and schools looking for murals that tell stories and nurture identity
Nature lovers, ocean wanderers, tree huggers, dreamers, movers, and shakers!
Anyone longing for a powerful talisman to inspire an ongoing connection with their true self
If you feel a spark as you read this - trust it.
You’re exactly who my art is made for.
