Art Tearapy, 2 Minona Street, Hawthorn, Melbourne (2026)

21/11/2025

The masks we wear are rarely just on our faces.

Some are crafted from expectation — the smile, the confidence, the poise.
Others are stitched from old stories — the caretaker, the strong one, the peacemaker,
the one who holds everything together even when they’re quietly unraveling inside.

We learn to wear these masks to belong, to stay safe, to protect our tender parts.
Sometimes they become so familiar that we forget where the mask ends
and where the truth of who we are begins.

But there comes a moment — soft, subtle, unmistakable —
when the body whispers, I’m tired.
When the heart says, Let me breathe.
When the spirit longs to be seen without the performance, without the polish.

Removing the mask is not an act of weakness;
it is an act of courage.
A gentle rebellion.
A returning.

In the spaces where we feel held — through art, breath, movement, tea, community —
we learn that it is safe to soften.
Safe to be messy.
Safe to be whole.
Safe to be human.

When we loosen the armour and let our truest self speak,
we don’t become smaller —
we become real.

And that is where healing begins.

10/11/2025

Who art therapy is for?

Art therapy is for anyone who feels something inside that’s hard to put into words.

For people navigating grief, identity, change, or simply wanting to reconnect with themselves.

You don’t need to be ‘good at art.’

You just need to be human.

Come as you are.

Let’s create, breathe, and begin again.

10/11/2025

What is Art Therapy?

Art therapy is not about making perfect art.

It’s not about technique or performance.

Art therapy is a soft place to land.

A space held by a trained therapist,
where your inner world can speak in colour, line, and form.

03/11/2025

🌿 Art Tearapy Core Offerings

• Individual Art Therapy — one-on-one creative sessions for emotional expression and self-awareness.
• Family Art Therapy — strengthening communication and connection through shared art-making.
• Group Art Therapy — themed programs such as The Wounded Healer, Ribbon of Resilience, and The Art of Movement.
• Creative Arts Therapy for Children & Youth — supporting emotional regulation, confidence, and belonging.
• Yoga & Art Integration — embodied sessions combining mindful movement and creative expression.
• Tea Meditation Ceremonies — slow, mindful rituals of connection and reflection.
• Pre- & Post-Natal Yoga Therapy — nurturing emotional grounding and connection between mother and child.
• Arts-Based Clinical Supervision — reflective and creative support for therapists and helping professionals.
• Faith-Based Creative Counselling — integrating spirituality and art for holistic healing.
• Corporate & EAP Wellbeing Programs — art therapy and mindfulness for workplace resilience.
• Community Workshops — CommuniTEA, Creative Collage Club, Movement 4 the Soul, and more.

⸻

✨ Book your session or join a creative circle
— link in bio.

28/10/2025

How I Became an Art Therapist

Reflections from an Art Tearapist

I’ve been reflecting on how I came to this work —
because sometimes, the hardest paths lead us home.

At fifteen, I was sent to boarding school.
I felt alone, lost, and depressed —
and in that silence, art became my safe place.
It helped me express what words couldn’t hold.

Later, I studied architecture in Cardiff
and co-founded Orkidstudio,
designing and building for orphanages in Uganda and Bolivia.
It was there, painting with children,
that I realised I loved helping people
more than building structures.

Back in Malaysia, I got involved in activism and politics —
a time of great change, but also great stress.
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder
and hospitalised three times.
During one stay, I met an art therapist —
and something in me awoke.

Years later, I moved to Melbourne
to study Art Therapy at La Trobe.
Now, through Art Tearapy,
I help others heal through creativity —
just as art once healed me.

From my cup to yours,
Su Mei

27/10/2025

🌸 Meet Su Mei Tan
Where Art, Movement & Healing Meet

Su Mei Tan is a Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur–based Art Therapist, Yoga Therapist, and Creative Practitioner whose work bridges art, movement, and mindfulness to nurture healing, connection, and transformation.

Born in Malaysia, Su Mei began her creative journey studying architecture in Cardiff, U.K., where she co-founded a charity providing design and building services in Uganda and Bolivia. It was there she discovered her true calling — not in building structures, but in building human connection through art.

She holds a Master of Art Therapy (La Trobe University) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) in Social Practice (VCA, University of Melbourne). Professionally, she has worked as an MST Psychiatric Family Therapist at MacKillop Family Services and as an Art Therapist at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Northpark Private Hospital.

Through her practice Art Tearapy, Su Mei offers individual, family, and group art therapy, faith-based creative counselling, EAP counselling, and arts-based clinical supervision. Her approach is trauma-informed, culturally sensitive, and spiritually inclusive, weaving creativity, embodiment, and compassion.

As a Yoga Therapist, trained at Brahmani Yoga (India) and the Amrit Yoga Institute (U.S.), Su Mei integrates breath and movement into healing through Tea Meditation Ceremonies, Yoga & Tea, Movement for the Soul, and pre/post-natal yoga.

✨ Her mission: To make creative healing accessible, inclusive, and deeply human.

02/10/2025

The Village: Supervision Circle with Su Mei

“To empower one soul is to strengthen the whole.”

Supervision at The Village is more than professional reflection. It is a creative, values-led circle that integrates art, justice, and community into the heart of practice.

✨ Why join a Supervision Circle with Su Mei?
• Holistic Growth – explore the link between personal and professional development.
• Creativity & Innovation – break through barriers and discover new ways of thinking.
• Tailored Support – every circle is shaped for the individuals within it.
• Community & Connection – share stories, insights, and support with like-minded peers.
• Integrated Expertise – with a background spanning architecture, social enterprise, disability services, art and yoga therapy, Su Mei brings a systemic, multicultural, and compassionate perspective.
• NDIS Knowledge – sound understanding of the NDIS to support those working in private practice.
• Empowerment through the Arts – discover tools to navigate mental health, intellectual diversity, and physical ability with creativity and strength.

✨ Our Guiding Values
• Healing & Justice – belonging is not a luxury, it is a right.
• Community & Equity – circles that hold every voice, especially those too often silenced.
• Creativity as Freedom – art as resistance, transformation, and rising.
• Diversity with Care – difference is celebrated as strength.
• Leadership with Responsibility – to lead is to lift others and create space for fairness.
• Faith with Openness – many paths, many truths, all held with reverence.
• Sustainability as Commitment – steadiness that lets us keep showing up for people and planet.
• Compassion with Integrity – aligning what we say with what we do.

📍 Gather with us in Hawthorn, Footscray, or online
💲 $50 for 2 hours
Compliant with ANZACATA supervision requirements

💫 Healing is never a solitary journey. It takes a village.

🌱 Expressions of Interest are now open.
DM or email to join the next circle.

15/07/2025

🌀 Why Arts-Based Supervision Matters
(And why we need more of it in helping professions)

In a world that often demands output over integration, supervision can either become a tick-box exercise — or a transformative space for reflection, growth, and resilience.

As a therapist, facilitator, and founder of Art Tearapy, I offer arts-based supervision grounded in the belief that:

🎨 Creative processes reveal what words cannot.
Art, image, movement, and metaphor allow us to access the layers of our practice — the unsaid, the intuitive, the emotional. It’s not about artistic skill, but permission to explore from a deeper place.

🫀 Who we are is how we hold space.
Supervision is not just about our clients. It’s about us — our identities, boundaries, blind spots, inner critics, values, and gifts. Arts-based approaches help us reconnect to our why, clarify our how, and stay in integrity.

🌱 Sustainable practice requires tending, not just doing.
Burnout is real. So is vicarious trauma. Supervision must offer more than case management — it must offer containment, co-regulation, creativity, and care. Especially for those working in marginalised communities or carrying lived experience.

🧶 Supervision is where threads get woven back together.
Sometimes we forget how much we’re holding — stories, systems, sorrow. Arts-based supervision offers a way to make sense of it all. To see the bigger picture again. To honour the work. To stay whole.

—

If you’re a therapist, healer, educator, or change-maker longing for a more embodied, creative, and reflective way to be supported — I’d love to work with you.

Let’s move beyond performance and into presence.
Let’s make space for your voice, your values, and your vision.

With care,
Su Mei Tan (she/her)
🖌 Art Therapist | 🧘 Yoga Therapist | 🌿 Clinical Supervisor
www.arttearapy.com

02/07/2025

The Revolution Continues—In Me

My lineage is one of fire.

My grandfather stood as Malaysia’s first opposition leader—bold enough to speak truth to power, even when it cost him safety and belonging. My father once held the post of Deputy Minister of Land, shaping policies that touched land, livelihood, and legacy. On my mother’s side, my great-grandfather helped lead the revolutionary propaganda for Sun Yat Sen—a visionary who dreamed of a new China.

I carry their courage in my bones.
Their convictions beat in my heart.
Their struggles shaped the ground I now walk.

And yet, I’ve chosen another way.

Not one of titles or political office, but of stillness. Of deep listening. Of healing through creativity, ceremony, and care.

I am still involved in politics—just not in the way that draws cameras or votes. I engage in community, I speak up for justice, I shape spaces where marginalised voices can rise. But I do not seek to be the public candidate. I choose the quieter work: the kind that shifts culture from the inside out.

While my ancestors fought for liberation on the streets and in parliament, I help others find freedom within—through art, movement, and presence.

For a long time, I wrestled with guilt. Was I turning away from the path laid out for me?
But I now understand—I am continuing the legacy, not by repeating it, but by reimagining it.

My act of courage is to rest.
My offering is to hold space.
My revolution is tenderness.
And my sacrifice is for my family.
To raise them in wholeness.
To give them a life rooted in peace, not performance.

To break the ancestral cycle of striving and sacrifice is not abandonment.
It is devotion in a new form.

I am not less for choosing presence over power.
I am more, because I choose to be whole.

16/05/2025

When Is It Art? When Is It Therapy? And What’s the Difference?

Not all art is art therapy — and not all therapy that includes art is run by a qualified art therapist. Let’s break it down:

1. Art
Art is creative expression — painting, drawing, making — for its own sake. It can be joyful, political, healing, or purely aesthetic. Everyone can make art. No rules, no qualifications needed.

2. Art as Therapy
Art can feel therapeutic. Making art in a safe space can help with self-expression, grounding, and emotional release. Many community programs use art this way, often facilitated by artists, teachers, or peer workers. While valuable, it’s not the same as formal art therapy.

3. Art Therapy
Art Therapy is a mental health profession. It combines psychotherapeutic approaches with art-making, led by a qualified Art Therapist trained in psychology, trauma-informed care, and ethical practice. In Australia, a qualified art therapist:
• Holds a Master’s in Art Therapy from an accredited institution
• Is registered with ANZACATA, or PACFA our peak professional bodies
• Has supervised clinical experience
• Engages in ongoing professional development

Art therapy isn’t just about making art — it’s about the therapeutic process through the art, and what happens in the relationship between the client, the image, and the therapist.

Why does this matter?
Because people’s emotions, trauma, and mental health deserve care and safety. It’s important to honour the distinctions, while also celebrating the healing power of creativity in all its forms.

In summary:
• Art = creative expression
• Art as Therapy = art that’s healing, but not formal therapy
• Art Therapy = clinical, evidence-based practice by a trained professional

Let’s honour all of it — but call it what it is.

15/05/2025

Working Within a Broken System

Let’s be honest: these systems—welfare, health, education, justice, mental health, NDIS—were never built with all of us in mind.

Many were designed to control, to categorise, to manage ‘risk,’ not to centre care or community. They reflect the values of those in power at the time they were built—and for many of us, that meant being excluded, dehumanised, or made invisible.

So yes, the system is broken.
But also—it is functioning exactly as it was designed to.

Still, some of us have no choice but to work within it.
To get the support.
To reach the people.
To survive.

It’s a privilege in itself to be untouched by these systems—to stand outside and critique them from a distance. But many of us are deep inside, translating our values into bureaucratic language, navigating red tape to carve out moments of genuine care.

We’re not here to fix it all.
We’re here to make room.
Room for stories that don’t fit neatly into funding boxes.
Room for healing that isn’t clinical.
Room for dignity, for agency, for softness.

To all of you doing this work while holding your own lived experience—thank you.
You are walking a tightrope with heart.

We are not here to save the system.
We are here to remember why we chose to care in the first place.

12/05/2025

A new chapter for Art Tearapy:
Su Mei is now Volunteering at the
I’m honoured to begin offering art therapy on Mondays as a volunteer at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC).

So many who arrive here carry untold stories—of resilience, loss, courage, and hope. Through creative expression, I hope to offer a gentle space where art can speak when words fall short.

Art therapy can be a powerful way to reclaim agency, process trauma, and reconnect with self and community.

To walk alongside those who have been displaced, and to witness the strength of their spirit through art, is both humbling and deeply meaningful.

If you’ve ever wondered what healing can look like outside traditional therapy rooms, come look into the quiet language of colour, texture, and imagination.

I’m so grateful to be part of the ASRC community and to contribute in this small way.

Art Tearapy

21/11/2025

10/11/2025

10/11/2025

03/11/2025

28/10/2025

27/10/2025

02/10/2025

15/07/2025

02/07/2025

16/05/2025

15/05/2025

12/05/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share

Category