The Code of Art

ITAS Podcast Episode #5

In this episode of ITAS Podcast, we are talking to Kibbi, a self-taught psychedelic artist who found a healing process of creating a code of art for her feelings while processing them. Listen to the full interview in Episode #5.

Kibbi’s (difficult) story

My name is Kibby Linga. I’m on the west coast in Los Angeles. And I’m a psychedelic abstract artist. It’s my main medium.

I picked up art in May of 2019 so it hasn’t been two years yet. It’s been an abrupt change in my life and a glorious one! I started a path of finding my true self and healing from PTSD and art has been one of the biggest tools. It’s essentially just being a safe place for me to express my most authentic feelings and pain in order to help me heal.

I was severely brainwashed as a child. I grew up in a very rigid black-and-white thinking. To put a long story short, I didn’t know this, but my life was a lie. I started embracing my PTSD recovery at age 30. I’m almost 33 now. It was so severe that I had forgotten it all as a result of dissociative identity disorder, which is a normal response to abnormal trauma.

I was basically brainwashed growing up in a narcissistic and abusive environment. I was swimming in denial from all angles, not just within the family. I was heavily abused in many areas – sexually, emotionally, physically – and by many people. But I know my truth today and it’s just part of my solution. And I have my solution in front of me and I’m embracing it. That’s my story in a nutshell.

The discovery of healing art

Art was recommended by my therapist as an outlet for expression. I think art is one of those tools that help us really explore ourselves and say, “Hey, something is not right, because this feels more right than that. Because if we can be authentic with what we’re creating, we can be authentic with ourselves.

I went to the art store and it was a very intuitive process for me to look and choose the supplies.

As I embrace a journey of growing and spiritual health, I become more and more intuitive. And the first thing that my intuition grabbed onto was painting.

Also a part of my abuse happens to revolve around colors. And with that being said, I had a very imaginative mind as a child, and I would code colors with personalities, feelings, whatever.

I use that imaginary gift in my expression. And it is part of my true passion because I was so imaginative as a child.

That was just me finding art and that medium, but there are also other mediums of art or expression that I have found that other parts of me enjoy. How I find these things is I’m just going with where my feelings are bringing me.

My heart is mostly in comedy, honestly. But I’m not quite there yet. It is further down in my recovery journey. I feel like I had some growing to do.

Also, I love video editing and photography editing in Photoshop to make it a little bit surreal.

There’s a story for everyone

I don’t use paint brushes. I use canvas, tape and then sponge brushes because that’s where my mind brought me as a child.

I use a lot of symmetry and the tape helps me to be precise. Although I allow imperfections into my art too, because that allows me to trust the process. But at the same time, the tape and the rigidity of it and also the symmetry helps me feel safe as a PTSD survivor.

However, as I grow, I see some of my pieces becoming more open.

So I think that’s really why I have the techniques that I do. I spend almost as much money on tape as I do on paint.

All of my paintings have so much meaning behind them. When I want to get through something in life, I paint it. I film myself going through the process and upload videos on YouTube. It’s very therapeutic because I get to use a little bit of my comedy there, I get to use my video editing skills, I get to show my face to the camera and bring my quirkiness, too. I’ve done about 10 of them now.

I want to show people that expression and art helps heal me and that there’s no rules, and most importantly I want to show them how I do it. I aspire to inspire. I show how I learn and grow from my pieces of art.

Life is life. Sometimes a hardship comes up, something’s going on and in order to get over it, I must go through the whole process to express the feelings that I have. Usually, I’m artistically blocked on the pick of the feeling, because it’s so painful. But then as I start to come out on the other side, this is when the expression starts to pick up.

I start with the color and create a background. For example, if it’s a mysterious feeling I’ll use purple. And then whenever I’m ready (and this is after I’ve had the feeling for a while) I start painting layers while the feeling is running its natural course. As I come to a closure with the feeling, the layers unravel.

Basically the course of a feeling and the piece of art end up finishing around the same time.

The way I address the layers is I use colors and shapes to code the progression of the feeling in my art. And then I’ll explain what the colors mean in my tutorials.

And after I finish the painting I feel so euphoric and triumphant. And then I see the learning experience, I see how I’ve grown. I think it’s a really cool thing.

Reflection and personal growth

I usually keep my pieces for myself as a reminder of what I have overcome and how much I’ve grown. But I’m starting to need more money and I’m starting to run out of space. So I’m getting ready to start selling in a few months.

Oftentimes, I reflect back and my heart just melts. Sometimes I reflect back on a piece in an area in my life where I’m struggling and I get lifted by it because I remember that there’s beauty on the other side.

On my website, I am writing the story of each piece and hope each piece brought me. It’s taking me a long time because it’s a very emotional process but I’m encouraged to keep going.

Community and support

I get incredible feedback from people about my art.

Some people would have started to do the same thing, and it makes me so giddy. They paint their pain, and then they come to me and show it and it just fulfills me so much!

I’m actually very grateful for social media because of the connections I make with like-minded people and the support that I’ve gotten through it.

My next YouTube tutorial is about the pieces called “I Love All” and it’s actually me expressing the belief of how I love everybody, no matter who they are, what they’ve done. It’s about forgiveness and it’s a very vulnerable thing for me.

Finding inner children

Also in my PTSD recovery, I have been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. What that means is (and I’m saying it from the standpoint of spiritual health more so than mental health) I have three different inner children. And my first one Kibby who is a painter has done a lot of work on my early childhood trauma. But my middle (the age 13-23) and the oldest (age 23-30) inner children have some unexpressed feelings and grief. I’m hoping and praying the universe for the time to nurture those two other inner children so that I can collectively come together and become a better and healthier me.

When I was finding my second inner child Paige she was talking to me through art and I painted that experience. She was telling me who she was, she used blue because she’s loyal, she used different shapes to say that she’s had really painful relationships in the past.

It was very spiritual in a sense of me connecting to my true self and finding my second inner child and having her speak to me through that piece of art.