“That’s how I do it,” said Poulsen, “I want to invite others to do the same.” For Poulsen, her painting helps her understand more clearly God’s love for humanity, and this is one of the ways she prays. We are made in the image and likeness of God the Creator, so according to Poulsen, artists imitate Him in their creative experience. This is also why Poulsen often works in self-portraits, because she understands femininity through her own experience of womanhood as well as her connection to God through personal prayer. This artist uses her painting skills as a meditation upon God and an active prayer to Him, specifically through her reflection upon the seven aspects of her exhibition. “I felt like I connected to God through the feminine more,” Poulsen shared. The seven ways Poulsen professed most uniquely connects to the divine are also the focuses of her seven paintings: “Body,” “Ritual Process,” “Love,” “Suffering,” “Creativity,” “Dreams” and “Nature.” Besides the holy number, seven, each painting images a circle, which is not only a symbol of perfection and divinity, but a cause of focus for the artist. “I understood that God is perfect and whole and with that comes multiple aspects,” Poulsen said, but as humanity is limited, we can only reflect limited attributes of the divine. These paintings are a way for Poulsen’s reflection upon the divine as well as a personal reflection of divine attributes as found in women.

The theme of Poulsen’s seven-piece exhibition is “Love Letters to the Divine Feminine.” Poulsen created seven powerful pieces of mixed media, but mostly of acrylic and oil on canvas. Eva Poulsen, a senior art major at the University of Dallas, not only sees the goal of her artwork to connect the viewer to the divine, but also for her own self-reflection upon the divine as an artist. The experience of art upon a viewer is undeniably a powerful one, and many identify a sublimity in art, a quality of transcendental beauty that connects to the divine.

Divine feminine painting