“Submerged in My Love” is a mixed media oil painting created by Braighlee Rainey. It was painted on a 36”x 36” stretched, gallery wrapped canvas using acrylics, hand pressed flowers from the garden and oil paint.

This painting was one of the first paintings in the series of exploration of the idea of self love and self care. Those two terms mean so many different things to so many people. Through this series I hope to convey the idea of inner peace and love with imagery from my memories and moments I find worthy of documenting that resonate with the word “love”.

I truly believe there are so many ways to love ourselves, through physical actions of course, but the true love comes from within. Once we love ourselves fully, then we are finally able to love others.

It is a delicate balance ,self love, for I see it from the perspective of the true love that comes from inside ourselves, introspection and thought, to the kind of self care practices capitalism and wants to sell us.

Ultimately I hope to show that the journey to true love within oneself is not a linear journey, not an easy one, takes the rest of our lives to accomplish, and there are endless paths to get there.