The Painting Knew Before I Did
How one unfinished painting led me into an unexpected story of intuition, hidden symbols and Australia's waterways.
I often begin a painting with an idea, but I've learnt that if I listen carefully enough, the painting usually has ideas of its own.
Bush Mermaid and Friends is one of those paintings.
It began as an ordinary Australian bush scene during a watercolour workshop with the wonderful artist Julie Simmons. We spent the day layering transparent washes of colour, allowing the pigments to mingle and move in ways that couldn't be entirely controlled. I loved the atmosphere that emerged, but when I packed the painting into my car, I had no idea where it was heading next.
Above: The figures begin to emerge from the landscape
I certainly didn't imagine that this unfinished painting would lead me into conversations about pareidolia, Aboriginal water stories, childhood memories, intuition, friendship, and ultimately change the way I paint.
Looking back now, it makes perfect sense. At the time, though, I was simply following one small moment of curiosity after another.
A few weeks later, I took the painting to my local art group, Continuum Art Society. My intention was straightforward enough. I wanted to develop it into a whimsical Australian bush scene filled with fairies and hidden creatures. I enjoy narrative paintings, and I imagined adding little discoveries throughout the landscape for people to find.
As we stood around the painting discussing ideas, one of the artists looked at it for a moment before saying, almost matter-of-factly,
"There's a mermaid." She pointed towards a shape in the water.
Then she smiled again. "And there's a dragonfly... and up there... that's the head of a horse."
I stared at the painting with new eyes. Until that moment, I hadn't seen any of them. Then, almost instantly, I couldn't see anything else.
The mermaid had been there all along, hidden within the flowing washes of paint. The dragonfly hovered above her. High amongst the trees, the horse emerged from the branches as though it had simply been waiting for someone to recognise it.
Instead of imposing my original plan onto the painting, I decided to trust what was already there. One brushstroke at a time, I began drawing those hidden forms out of the abstract shapes. Birds appeared. A turtle emerged. Tiny creatures began revealing themselves amongst the foliage.
It didn't feel as though I was inventing them. It felt as though I was uncovering them.
As both an artist and a psychologist, that experience fascinated me. Psychologists call this phenomenon pareidolia—our remarkable tendency to discover meaningful images in seemingly random patterns. We see faces in clouds, animals in rock formations, and familiar shapes in the shadows. Our brains are constantly searching for meaning.
Artists have been working with this phenomenon for centuries. Perhaps that's why intuitive painting has always felt so magical to me. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened.
A couple of years earlier, while completing the Mixed Media section of the Milan Art Mastery Program, I had covered a canvas with sprayed paint, inks and loose marks with absolutely no plan. Hidden within those abstract shapes, a mermaid and her merman slowly emerged. That painting became one of the most intricate pieces I had ever created and taught me a lesson I have carried ever since.
Above: The Mermaid painting that emerged from shapes on the page. Artwork by Popi Iatrou
Sometimes the painting already knows what it wants to become. Our job isn't to force it. Our job is to notice.
As the bush painting continued to evolve, I found myself asking a question that had never crossed my mind before. “Did Aboriginal Australia have stories about mermaids?” The question surprised me as much as the painting had. So I began researching. What I discovered opened an entirely new world.
Across Australia, there are ancient stories of female water spirits connected with rivers, billabongs and sacred waterways. The thousands-of-years-old traditions of Indigenous Australian water spirits, specifically the Yawkyawk (freshwater spirits) and the Ji-Merdiwa (saltwater spirits) of Arnhem Land. These figures are not merely mythical folklore; they are sacred ancestral beings deeply intertwined with traditional law and ecological protection. These water spirits act as guardians of vital water sources and sacred marine sites.
As I read about their relationship with dragonflies and the Rainbow Serpent, I found myself looking back at my own painting with fresh eyes. The dragonfly that had appeared so unexpectedly suddenly carried another layer of meaning. The horse hidden amongst the trees gradually transformed into the flowing form of the Rainbow Serpent, weaving protectively through the landscape.
The painting wasn't illustrating these stories. It had simply led me towards them.
Wanting to learn more, I called upon my friend Kim, who had passionately shared her Aboriginal wisdom with me for over two decades. I knew she would have an understanding that I didn't. I was eager to hear what she knew about these stories and what they meant from her own experience. She encouraged me to follow my own intuition and to trust my creativity. That was all I needed to hear. My heart was filled with inspiration.
The more I learnt, the more my respect for Australia's ancient waterways deepened. I realised this painting wasn't just becoming a fantasy scene. It had become a reminder that every landscape carries stories far older than any one of us.
Around the same time, another conversation unfolded in an entirely different direction. I rang my friend Kelly, who had once been one of my belly dance students and now works as an animal communicator and psychic.
"I've talked to mermaids while swimming in the ocean for years," I admitted to her, laughing nervously at how strange that sounded when spoken aloud. "But I've never actually seen one."
Kelly explained, "Not everyone sees them," she said. "Some people feel them." She explained that intuition doesn't always arrive as an image. Sometimes it arrives as a feeling, a knowing, or a creative impulse that only makes sense much later.
That conversation stayed with me. Perhaps I'd never needed to see a mermaid. Perhaps I'd been communicating with them through some other elusive sense.
A little later I spoke with another friend from my bellydancing years, Sarah Fletcher who runs Elements Women’s Wellness Centre, also known to many as The Mermaid Medium. Sarah is also of Aboriginal descent. When I sent her a photo of the bush mermaid painting in its early stages, she said warmly, "I feel like she's me."
She shared her understanding of ocean mermaids that journey through Polynesian waters into Australia and the Australian inland water mermaids who embody a more protective presence around rivers, swamps and waterways.
Then she sent me a photograph that stopped me in my tracks. There she was, resting gracefully on the branch of a tree stretching over a river, wearing a beautifully crafted Aboriginal-designed mermaid tail. I stared at the photograph for a long time.
It felt as though the painting had reached out and found another friend.
With Sarah's permission, I'd love to share that photograph with you here because, for me, it became another chapter in the remarkable journey this painting had begun.
Above: Sarah Fletcher - The Mermaid Medium book and cards (photo kindly provided by Sarah)
As extraordinary as all these conversations were, perhaps the deepest connection reaches much further back. Back to my childhood.
My mother has always loved mermaids. She painted them long before I ever did. Today, the walls of her home on the Greek island of Agios Efstratios are filled with mermaids representing her three daughters. When my sisters and I were children, family holidays often ended with Mum sculpting magnificent mermaid tails from sand while we lay laughing on Australian beaches, pretending they were real.
I grew up surrounded by mermaids.
Above: The mermaid paintings at my mother’s small Greek Island home walls. Art by Thalia Zervas
Perhaps the seeds of this painting were planted decades before I ever picked up a paintbrush.
Looking back now, I don't think Bush Mermaid and Friends was simply another painting. It became a turning point. Until then, I often approached a canvas with a destination in mind.
This painting taught me something entirely different. It taught me to begin with curiosity instead of certainty. To allow hidden images to emerge rather than forcing them into existence. To trust my intuition.
Since creating Bush Mermaid and Friends, intuitive painting has become one of my favourite ways to work. I still begin with an idea, but I'm no longer attached to where it ends. Somewhere beneath the layers of colour and texture, another story is usually waiting patiently to reveal itself.
As a psychologist, I've spent almost three decades helping people listen to the deeper wisdom within themselves—the symbols that appear in dreams, the metaphors that emerge in therapy, the parts of ourselves that often know the way before our conscious mind catches up.
Perhaps painting isn't so different. Perhaps creativity is another language of the unconscious. One that speaks in colour instead of words.
Above: Bush Mermaid and Friends mixed media on watercolour paper (77 x 56.5cm) by Popi Iatrou
Every time I look at Bush Mermaid and Friends, I discover another hidden companion tucked amongst the trees or beneath the water's surface.
It makes me smile. It also makes me wonder what else I haven't noticed yet.
I'd love to know… Have you ever experienced a piece of music, a dream, a painting or even a conversation that seemed to know something before you did?
Perhaps that's what creativity does. Maybe it quietens the conscious mind just enough to reveal the wondrous depths of the subconscious experiences that shape us, and unveil the archetypal messages of the superconscious.
I'd love to hear your stories in the comments. Because if this painting has taught me anything, it's this: Sometimes we don't create the story. Sometimes the story is patiently waiting for us to notice it.
The painting knew before I did.
This artwork will be shown at the Continuum Art Society Showcase at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery from Friday 4th to Tuesday 22nd of September. Come down and see it if you are around, and enjoy this beautiful gallery and cafe.
