Water, Healing, and Evidence-Based Design
Beautiful Dreamer by Dorothea Sandra, EDAC
I’m always looking for new ways to improve myself as an evidence-based design artist. To do this, I read lots of medical/scientific study articles, with many of them coming from The Center For Health Design.
According to a number of scientific studies, nature-based visual art and nature-based sounds can positively impact healing. One study even clearly showed that nature-based positive distractions can positively impact patient perception of pain.
In this blog, some of the information comes from my book, 100 Days of Happy Happy Art, Evidence-Based Design, which is about my artistic journey into the world of evidence-based design.
Water is one of the more important elements of nature. It has been a symbol of life, change, the unconscious, purification, flexibility, forgiveness, and more.
Cultures throughout time have had different meanings and interpretations for water. Native American tribes honored it. Ancient Greeks saw it as a symbol of power. In Taoism, water remains a symbol for virtue and the highest goodness.
In evidence-based art, compositions with water should evoke healing. “Calm water scenes are preferred, while gushing rapids or crashing ocean waves should be avoided. Even a trickling water fountain might create negative experiences for people with full bladders or nonfunctioning bladders.” (Distinctive Art Source, “Healthcare Art Bloopers,” 2013)
The Tempest by Dorothea Sandra (SOLD)
After seeing my evidence-based floral art, many people have a hard time seeing the real inner artist in me. I tell people—all the time—that I am much more of an abstract artist inside and that I just love painting abstract water-inspired scenes.
This goes back to my childhood art lessons. I was first trained as an artist at seven or eight years old, often right on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Rockport and Gloucester, Massachusetts. The two artists who trained me were trained by Roger William Curtis, a famous New England seascape artist and the director of the North Shore Arts Association for many years.
When I think of water and art, my first thoughts are often of the ocean waters I learned from, which I associate with primordial power and violent movement.
For evidence-based design art, however, I calm the water and make the composition happy.
In the video there are examples of this.
In November 2025, two abstract, water-inspired paintings were included in the international curation, “The Weather Inside Us,” curated by Nam NK, India and the United Arab Emirates. Both paintings, Power Rhythms and Beauty In Chaos, are abstract expressions of my experiences with ocean water. (Power Rhythms is for sale through Singulart.com, and Beauty In Chaos was sold to a new client the very first time I showed it publicly.) Both paintings express water but with more vigor and power.
Click on the image below to view the international curation.
Artistic And Scientific Merit Of A New Design
One of my absolute favorite water-inspired paintings was a 3-canvas composition I called JOYFUL TRIPTYCH.
At the time of its creation, I was EDAC (evidence-based design certified), and I was experimenting with creating an abstract work of water-inspired art that would also lead the brain to produce calming as well as pleasure/happiness chemicals.
I wanted water and movement (but not too much movement, which might trigger a bladder) and I wanted viewers to experience a sense of joy but also stability.
Up until this point in evidence-based design research, abstract art was frowned upon and discouraged. I wanted to see if I could create something that was in the abstract category but also acceptable (at least marginally) as evidence-based design.
Joyful Triptych by Dorothea Sandra, EDAC (SOLD)
Even though this triptych was water-inspired, it fit right in within a snowy mountain setting.
What I love about it is there’s beauty and drama (artistic merit) as well as (through color, palette knife movements, and evidence-based design knowledge) brain chemicals producing happiness and tranquility (scientific merit).
I am also very happy and honored to announce that I will be in amazing, beautiful, and fabulous Shanghai, China from the middle of February 2026 to the middle of May. I will be staying and painting at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel. If you are in this area during this time, please don't hesitate to visit with me.
I truly enjoy meeting new people!
