How EAZY is Art?: The Line Between Therapy and Sanity

"Shades of YE"

Right now the people of the world are swept up in the scandalous obsession, that is currently sweeping the nation in the Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, and Pete Davidson affair. What started as a behind-close door private marital problem, quickly escalated into a bloodthirsty quest for vengeance. Kanye West released a song with The Game titled, “EAZY”. This music video depicts a claymation Kanye brutalizing a claymation Pete Davidson. Some say this is “too far” others say that it is “artistic expression”. The commonplace opinion is that Kanye is an artistic savant that is simply using his “art” to manifest his feelings about his current standing on life with his fanbase. But is this truly a depression or a maniac moment in time.

Art Therapy is a tool used by Doctors around the world to alleviate the woes of their patients. It’s a healthy display of the inner workings of the inner mind, but it is a positive tool meant to help people carve out their feelings in a positive manner. But with the scandal that is Kanye and Kim, are they giving art as therapy a bad name? Art therapy was pioneered in the 1940s by Margaret Naumburg and Edith Kramer. They employed art therapy to help clients delve into their inner thoughts, feelings, and experiences through creative expression. Patients' free-form art expressions are used by therapists to help them to talk about the images and to begin to look to themselves for meaning and understanding. It can help people deal with powerful emotions, develop self-awareness and self-worth, and reduce tension and anxiety when combined with talk therapy. Drawing, painting, coloring, and sculpting, to mention a few forms of creative expression, can all be used in art therapy.

Kanye’s expression is full of hate. In response to the criticism, Kanye captioned his recent Instagram post: "Art is therapy just like this view. art is protected as freedom of speech. Art inspires and simplifies the world. Art is not a proxy for any ill or harm. Any suggestion otherwise about my art is false and mal intended."

Harmful or harmonious? Therapy or tragedy? What line do you think Kanye is crossing?