Maalavidaa is Alycia Rainaud, a French Canadian Graphic Designer and Digital Artist based in Montréal. Her highly saturated abstract aesthetic finds its inspiration in Jungian therapy, color therapy, and meditation. Alycia's work aims to explore the complexity of emotions through creative introspection as a path to increase emotional intelligence and mental health sensitivity.
As a former graphic designer, I got into art around 2016 when I started showing all the abstract imageries I created to my therapist at the time. As a Jungian-oriented mental health professional, heavily influenced by creativity, she encouraged me to start sharing these experiments outside of their graphic design context (i.e layout, typography, branding…) as it seemed to be a healthy practice for me. I eventually never stopped.
Well for what it’s worth, I think we could say that my first major breakthrough was when I started getting more eyes on my work, especially on Instagram where my audience was growing quite steadily. I do strongly feel that, to this date, it was my first big win. To be heard, seen, and valued for what I do and what I stand for, as I started helping more and more people to process their emotions.
I guess this might be a little bit easy for me to answer in this way, but obviously, my favorite project will have to be Heal The Deal. I created this visual and social project more than a year ago as a cornerstone for mental health conversations in the Metaverse. To this date, the community aspect and overall journey towards healing we’re going through together have been the most enlightening experience in my life, and I’m utterly grateful for that.
