A Second Look: The Emotional Mirror in Art
- Jackie Davis
- Aug 13
- 3 min read
By JUBA
Art should not just be seen—it should be felt. In a world saturated with fleeting images and filtered identities, I want my work to ask more of us. I want it to make us pause. To confront. To feel. And in doing so, to witness the humanity in stories we often overlook.
I learned early that being misunderstood can shape how you see the world—and yourself. In my CPS file, there’s a line that reads like a brushstroke of misrecognition:
“Child exhibits hyper-vigilance, likely manipulative, lacks attachment to caregiver.”
But behind that clinical jargon was a scared kid watching the door every night, hoping someone would knock and say, “You can come home now.”
These records weren’t just assessments; they were narratives imposed on me before I could write my own. That’s why I create art—to reframe these labels into textured visual narratives. Where others saw “oppositional behavior,” I now see protest. Where they recorded “difficulty regulating emotions,” I see the cost of surviving emotional abandonment.
One report read:
"He tends to isolate during group activities, avoids eye contact, often appears distracted or emotionally detached.”
But they never asked what I was thinking about. Maybe I was wondering if my brother was safe. Maybe I was imagining a world where I didn’t have to prove I deserved love.
Another excerpt still echoes in me:
“Child refuses to discuss biological parents. Displays signs of unresolved grief.”
Of course I refused. Grief isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s silent. Sometimes it’s scribbled on the back of worksheets or painted in shadows and symbols.
Recent neuroscience gives language to what I’ve always intuitively felt. Studies from Harvard and Dartmouth reveal that the same brain region—the medial prefrontal cortex is activated when we reflect on ourselves and when we try to understand others. Empathy, it seems, is a simulation, we use our own minds to interpret another’s. But here’s the catch: we’re more likely to do this for those we perceive as similar.
So what does that mean for a child in the system, already marked as “other”?
It means we have to create entry points. Art becomes my bridge, reaching across that perceived difference and saying, “Look again. What if this was you?”
Every figure or portrait I paint, every abstract form I layer, carries the residue of that child in the file. The one who lied about being okay because no one could afford the truth. The one who used silence like armor.
“Child is described as bright but easily agitated. Responds to structure but struggles with authority.”
Translation? A brilliant, overwhelmed boy trying to control a world that had taken away all his choices.
And then there was this:
“Youth expresses anger through art, drawings often show themes of escape or separation.”
They saw anger. I see clarity. I was already using art to make sense of rupture, to visually code pain into something legible—even if no one understood it yet.
My work doesn’t just aim to invoke emotion—it aims to disrupt emotional numbness. To ask: How do we begin to understand people we don’t relate to? Can empathy be expanded through art? Can a second look lead to a deeper reckoning?
I believe it can. That’s why I layer texture like memory, use repetition like trauma looping, and leave space in the canvas for questions that don’t have answers. Because emotion in art isn’t about sentiment—it’s about survival, about reclaiming the story from those who once told it wrong.
And now, I tell it like this:
You may not know what it’s like to grow up in the system.
But if you’ve ever felt invisible…
If you’ve ever fought to be seen beyond your scars…
Then maybe, just maybe—
You’ve already met me on the canvas.
JUBA
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