The artist behind the OASIS painting

Uncovering the Oasis Within is quite a mouthful, isn’t it?

I’ve lost count of the number of people who didn’t quite have the memory bank—or perhaps the attention span—to let this guiding philosophy land whenever they asked for my website’s URL, email address, or even the name of the movement I started.

The name came to me during meditation in 2022. The oasis was a metaphor for the body’s innate capacity for healing—a place where renewal and safety can still be found, even when it has become shrouded by the stress of life’s trials and tribulations, deep-rooted conditioning and those inevitable pockets of overwhelm.

I resonated with an oasis rather than a lake because of where it exists. Even amidst the most arid conditions of a desert, there can still be water, shelter and life. It reminded me that wellbeing isn’t dependent on creating a life without stressors, but on tending to the resources within us that allow us to meet them.

The practices I hold close—mindfulness, Restorative Yoga, sound healing and somatic inquiry—became part of this act of uncovering: gently peeling away the layers of obstruction so we can listen more closely to ourselves, build resilience and reconnect with what has been there all along.

For four years, I tried to express this philosophy through words. Anyone who knows me also knows that my creative process is incredibly messy. Ideas arrive in a flurry, my mind maps are chaotic, and while I might not always have the words, resources or troubleshooting know-how to explain how I am going to get somewhere, I can usually visualise the outcome and connect deeply with the emotion of the bigger picture.

Eventually, I realised that perhaps Uncovering the Oasis Within needed to be seen, rather than explained.

I knew exactly whose hands I trusted with it.

My creative relationship with Angeline Artroom began in 2022, when I commissioned her to bring the emotional undertones of Unearth Retreat to life. Her artwork helped set the scene for the reflective journaling journey of 95 attendees. Over the years, she has also created paintings to commemorate milestones for my nearest and dearest, and to soothe grieving hearts when I knew an image of someone dearly missed might offer a kind of comfort that my words or affection could not.

Since then, Angeline has graduated from the OASIS Restorative Yoga Teacher Training and joined me on three silent retreats as photographer and programme assistant. She has held space for the flurry of my ideas, remained steadfast when curveballs threw me off course, and helped me troubleshoot when the universe presented lessons for which I didn’t always have the resources, skills or answers—all without judgement.

I can truly say that she knows my heart, and has quietly become one of the foundational pillars of OASIS.

Four years after OASIS began, I finally commissioned her to paint the oasis I had been carrying within me all this time. I wanted the philosophy to have another way of reaching people—not merely through words that might land in fragments amidst our busy monkey minds, but through an image that could find its way directly into someone’s emotional landscape. A shot to the heart, they say.

That painting now lives through our OASIS Remembrance Cards, created as small rituals of care and connection. Keep one somewhere you might encounter it when your own heart needs remembering, or send one to someone who needs to know they are being held in love.

There is something profoundly human about an old-school handwritten note. In a world of fleeting messages and hurried exchanges, putting pen to paper asks us to slow down and say: I see you. I’m thinking of you. You matter to me.

As Mental Health Awareness Month approaches, perhaps this is one way we can shed light. Not by insisting that everything becomes bright, but by noticing what has remained unseen—in ourselves and in one another—and meeting it with understanding, compassion and presence.

The first 25 sets of Remembrance Cards will extend that care further, with proceeds donated towards the flood-relief funds I am raising for Nepal.

Light a light and pass it on. May we tend to the oasis within ourselves, remember the oasis within one another, and together, shed a little more light.

Much love,
Gabrielle

The OASIS Remembrance Cards Collection includes 9 other A6-sized prints by Angeline Artroom that have been lovingly selected by Gabrielle.