Lean Into Joy

In Lean Into Joy, Kavel Rafferty explores the contradictions she has found in wellness culture, an affirmation overload and the pressures of toxic positivity. Using vintage posters and gloss paint, she redacts slogans—literally painting over the messages while leaving the words that she finds work, exposed—offering a wry critique of the sometimes banal self-help clichés and pseudoscientific platitudes.

These redactions, create abstract paintings, which frame the highlighted words. Rafferty gently mocks her own attraction to motivational mantras and quick-fix psychology. She acknowledges how seductive these messages can be, especially when navigating anxiety or low mood. But through her work, she questions their effectiveness—and their limits.

While she welcomes the destigmatisation of mental health and the increasing openness around therapy, she worries that in our expanding ‘therapy-speak’ lexicon—terms like ‘triggered’, ‘gaslighting’, or ‘boundaries’—can lose meaning when overused. Everyday frustrations are not always trauma, and flattening clinical language may erode our ability to describe feelings with depth or accuracy. Not every ex is a narcissist!

Forced positivity can feel emotionally draining, and often invalidating, especially for those living with depression. There are no quick fixes—despite what slogans might say. In redacting the gloss of positivity, Rafferty’s work suggests that real joy might not lie in upbeat or overly optimistic memes but playing with language and occasionally laughing at oneself.