Psychiatrist Julia Burns heals through art

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated Julia Burns’s profession. Burns is currently working as a psychiatrist. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

Art meets psychiatry in Chapel Hill artist Julia Burns’ healing meditation service, which blend her doctoral training with her passion for poetry and painting.

Burns is a psychiatrist who was inspired to take her medical training a step further — delving into the world of art therapy in addition to her traditional psychiatry.

She began writing after she worked as medical director in a child welfare agency where she heard the tragic stories of many young people.

“I was praying for a different way to connect with people for healing, and so I started writing poetry, and I just kept writing, and three months later I started painting (the poems),” Burns said.

Burns’ patients include people with medical issues or those who have recently experienced trauma in their lives.

Her healing meditations — performed out of her Chapel Hill home — incorporate her patients’ favorite poems, quotes and scriptures along with images the patients connect with.

“Say the person has breast cancer — I may draw their breast and then cover them with the sayings, and if they have a lake house in the mountains then I might paint a scene of a lake over it so that no one can tell really what’s underneath,” Burns said.

Sheryl Fowler, one of Burns’ patients, attested to Burns’ talent, compassion and ability to make sessions with patients more like a conversation between friends.

“I’ve always liked unschooled artists like (Henri) Rousseau, people who were untrained and their work was imperfect,” Fowler said. “To me, that’s always had a little more soul to it than some refined artist like Rembrandt and that’s kind of what I like about her paintings is that they’re not perfect but they are sort of a perfect reflection of how she sees the person or the scene that she’s painting.”

As an untrained artist, Burns is unaware of many techniques and formalities of the art world. However, she does not mind the raw aspect of her work because she said her art is like a living, breathing organism that is imperfect and ever-changing.

“The edges of life are very raw, much rawer than I ever dreamed when I started medical school 30 years ago,” Burns said. “I leave my edges (on canvas) raw and frayed — that’s, to me, the process of living.”

Burns’ work varies greatly — not all of her art is created by working with new patients. Sometimes she paints pictures inspired by the stories of previous patients during her time at the welfare agency or portraits of her own family members.

In her first series of paintings entitled “Black and White and Red All Over,” Burns recounts stories she heard regarding domestic violence and sexual abuse. She referred to the collection as a vehicle for conversation around a topic that many people feel more comfortable ignoring.

Rhonda Chused, a friend of Burns, said her art is genuine and she puts a lot of herself into each piece.

“Julia just paints her heart,” Chused said. “The (paintings of hers) that I have have special meaning.”

arts@dailytarheel.com