AN ART GALLERY BASED ON A TRUE STORIES
Exclusive Exhibition Collection
The artwork presented on this website represents only a glimpse of Joshua’s artistic journey. Many original works have been intentionally reserved and will not be published online.
These exclusive pieces will be unveiled only at future art exhibitions, where visitors will have the opportunity to experience the collection as it was intended—in person.
Each exhibition is designed to tell a deeper story of faith, suffering, hope, and redemption through art that cannot be fully experienced on a screen.
“Some stories are meant to be seen, not simply viewed“
Voice of Persecutions
The Unspoken Side of Trauma
By Joshua Ehm
I open the gateway to my heart, and I find nothing but the pain of the past. The trauma that has haunted me remains alive within my soul. I still see the silhouette of the torturer walking into the dark room where so much of my life was forever changed.
I cry out from memories that refuse to become the past. They remain painfully present, no matter how desperately I try to move forward. Yet no one else can see what I carry, because the deepest wounds are hidden beneath the skin. I cry out anyway, and to some I may appear irrational or broken. What they cannot see is the trauma that continues to echo inside me.
There was a time when I could no longer hear the voices of others. Even more frightening, I could no longer hear the reflection of my own voice. I felt stripped of control over my own destiny. The only place where I found even a fragment of freedom was on a blank sheet of paper. The white, silent page became the one place that listened without judgment.
So I began to write.
I wrote my story. I wrote what had happened to me. And I drew what words alone could not express.
This drawing represents the invisible reality of trauma—the silent wounds that remain hidden while a person struggles to be heard, believed, and understood. It is a portrait of suffering that lives beneath the surface, where others often cannot see it.
Art became my voice when my own voice had disappeared.
“No one listens until they see something.”
— Joshua, 2022
Freedom
Discovering freedom through letting go.
By Joshua Ehm
I wanted to sing, as the birds sing—
without fear of who might hear,
without worrying what others might think.
Yet when the bird came to rest upon my hand, I whispered,
“O Bird, fly to your native land. Do not come with me.”
I believed I was cursed—
cursed to walk alone,
cursed to carry the weight of pain upon my shoulders,
the pain of loneliness,
the pain of rejection.
But there is a loneliness more precious than comfort,
and there is a freedom more valuable than the whole world.
So I began washing my heart of every question, every certainty, every title, and every identity I had tried to hold onto. I discovered that neither knowledge nor wealth, neither status nor recognition, could unravel the deepest mystery of truth.
Some truths are not learned.
They are suffered.
Pain became the price my heart had to pay before it could finally become free.
The bird became more than a bird. It became a messenger.
So I said,
“Fly home. Tell your people to sing. Tell them, ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'”
This drawing is not about captivity—it is about release. It is about the quiet moment when the soul stops searching for acceptance and begins discovering freedom. The bird represents the voice I once wished I had. By letting it go, I finally found my own.
I used to ask,
Who am I?
Where do I belong?
I do not ask anymore.
I am no one.
I am placeless.
And because I no longer cling to the illusion of “I,”
I am free.
“I used to ask who I am and where I belong. I don’t ask anymore. I am no one and I am placeless. I am free of all ‘I.'”
— Joshua Ehm
I Am and I Am Not
The Prison of Mirrors
By Joshua Ehm
My eyes tell you the truth.
Not the mirror.
The mirror reflects what others want me to become. It shows a version of myself shaped by expectations, approval, fear, and conformity. But that reflection is not me.
I have lived inside a prison of mirrors—a prison built from the opinions of others. Every reflection demanded that I change, that I become more acceptable, more predictable, more like everyone else.
Yet something within me refused.
I resisted.
I wanted to become the person I was created to be, not the person others expected to see.
Resistance has a cost.
It cost me acceptance.
It cost me belonging.
It cost me relationships.
It cost me parts of the life I thought I was supposed to live.
There were moments when I wondered whether losing everything meant I had lost myself.
But I have learned that sometimes losing is the beginning of finding.
Only when the false reflections begin to shatter can the true self emerge.
This drawing captures the tension between the face presented to the world and the soul hidden beneath it. The smiling reflection in the mirror is the performance—the mask worn to satisfy the expectations of others. The figure outside the mirror carries the unseen weight of authenticity, bent beneath rejection, yet refusing to surrender.
Freedom begins the moment we stop negotiating our identity with the mirrors around us.
The greatest prison is not the one built with walls.
It is the one built with reflections.
“I don’t want to be a machine man with a machine heart. I don’t want to become someone others want me to be. The greatest sin is not wanting to become someone. The greatest sin is pretending to be someone you are not.”
— Joshua Ehm, 2022
Broken Witness
The Witness
By Joshua Ehm
There were days when I could not breathe.
Days when simply making it through the morning required more strength than I possessed. I watched others live ordinary lives while mine was consumed by memories I could neither escape nor explain.
So I began tearing apart my diary.
Page after page, I ripped it into fragments, only to piece it back together again. Without realizing it, I was creating someone.
Someone who would carry every painful memory I could no longer bear.
Someone who would remain silent when I could no longer find words.
Someone who could endure what I believed I could not.
But silence was never meant to be the end.
One day, I stood before a mirror and searched for the person I had become. I could no longer recognize the reflection staring back at me. In anger, grief, and desperation, I struck the mirror until it shattered.
I gathered every broken piece.
I glued them onto the lifeless body I had created from my torn journal.
I embedded the fragments into the pages that held my story.
In every shard of glass, I saw a different part of myself—broken, distorted, wounded, yet unmistakably real.
The figure I had created could finally speak.
Not because it had found a voice of its own, but because it carried mine.
Its silence became louder than my words.
Its scars became my testimony.
The hands in this drawing carry a meaning that reaches beyond suffering. They bear witness to a journey of transformation. These are the hands that once trembled with fear, yet later baptized more than two thousand people who had embraced Christianity after being raised as Muslims. They have held both brokenness and hope. They testify to the past I survived, the person I became, and the life that still unfolds before me.
This artwork is not about destruction.
It is about reconstruction.
Sometimes God does not erase our broken pieces.
He gathers them.
He transforms them into a testimony that speaks more powerfully than perfection ever could.
Every scar remembers.
Every fragment bears witness.
Every broken piece still reflects the light.
“My past is no longer my prison. It has become my witness.”
— Joshua Ehm, 2022
True Lover
Open Hands
By Joshua Ehm
There came a day when I realized my journals were no longer enough.
Paper can be torn.
Books can be burned.
Words can be hidden.
Memories can be stolen.
So I tattooed my diaries onto my skin.
Not merely with ink, but through the scars life carved into my body and soul. Every mark became a page that no one could erase. Every wound became a sentence. Every scar became a testimony.
My body became the book that no one could steal.
These tattoos do not tell only my story. They carry the voices of countless others who have been silenced by fear, violence, rejection, and shame. Their stories live within mine, and mine within theirs.
I lift my empty hands toward heaven, hoping to receive mercy.
I search the sky for a sign from the Creator.
Perhaps, I wonder, the Creator has chosen silence too.
There is no thunder.
No miracle.
No voice breaking through the darkness.
Only fear.
Only blame.
Only thousands of wounded souls longing for one simple thing:
To be loved.
To be accepted.
So I open my hands.
I have nothing left to offer except the story written upon my skin.
That is all I possess.
Yet I have discovered a mystery.
My nothing has become everything.
And before the Infinite, everything I once clung to is nothing.
Then, in the deepest silence, my own heart finally answered the question I had been asking all along.
Not with words shouted from heaven,
but with a whisper rising from within.
“There is only one place to look for the Creator: in the heart of the true lover.”
Perhaps the Creator was never absent.
Perhaps I had been searching in the wrong direction.
This drawing is about surrender—not surrender to despair, but to love. The open hands hold nothing because they no longer need to grasp for identity, certainty, or approval. They are empty enough to receive grace.
The diary has become skin.
The wounds have become witness.
The silence has become prayer.
And the heart has finally become home.
“I tattoo all of my diaries on my skin, so no one can steal them from me anymore. My scars are no longer evidence of what was done to me; they are evidence that love can still speak through broken flesh.”
— Joshua Ehm, 2022
Idol
Religion or God?
This drawing reflects the wound left by people who claim to speak for God while using religion as a tool of power. The hand gripping the book titled Religions, transformed into a syringe, symbolizes beliefs being forced into people’s lives instead of love being freely offered. The open hand beside it represents an invitation rather than coercion—a God who calls instead of controls.
The piece questions the difference between living faith and religious systems that seek authority. It suggests that when doctrine replaces compassion, fear replaces freedom, and human-made idols take the place of the living God. The reaching hands below symbolize those longing for hope, truth, and acceptance, while the image asks whether they are being offered love or control.
“The true God gave us freedom; the false god seeks to control us.” — Joshua, 2022
Bubble
Love Beyond What We Hold
This drawing explores the tension between possessing truth and becoming transformed by it. The hands dominate the composition, holding tightly to what they believe is true, while a faint human figure looks beyond them and a descending hand from above suggests that love is not something humanity grasps, but something first given. The small falling hand symbolizes the fragile self that can only be lifted when it releases the illusion of control.
The artwork reflects the realization that truth is not meant to remain in our hands as an object to defend, but to be engraved upon the heart as a way of living. Love cannot be carried like a possession or wielded like a doctrine; it must dwell within us, shaping how we see, speak, and embrace others. Only when truth moves from the hands to the heart does it become life.
“Those who carry love with their hands cannot see love with their hearts.” — Joshua, 2022
The Valley of Brokenness
The Silent Presence
This artwork is not about power.
It is about presence.
The bowed head suggests someone carrying another’s sorrow.
The restrained hands remind us that divine strength is never reckless.
The forward movement tells us that heaven is always moving toward those who are broken.
Sometimes God answers our prayers by changing our circumstances.
Sometimes He answers by changing us.
And sometimes His answer is simply His presence.
The angel in this drawing seems to whisper:
“Your darkest night is not the end of your story.”
“You may feel abandoned, but Heaven has never forgotten your name.”
“You may not understand your suffering today, but God is walking beside you with every step.”
“Your deepest wound is not the end of your story.”
Sometimes the greatest miracle is not that God removes the valley.
Sometimes the greatest miracle is that He walks through it with us.
IN THE DARKEST PLACE
In the Darkest place, God was still there,
This artwork captures the silent cry of a man (Me) who has lost everything-his freedom, his dignity, his hope. Stripped of everything but his humanity, he sits in a place designed to break the body and crush the soul.
Yet even in this forgotten cell, where darkness is heavy and the air is cold, God was still there.
Not with an open door, but with a whisper that refused to be silenced. Not with freedom from the pain, but with purpose in the pain.
The bars above do not bring light to the room; they only remind Me that I am surrounded by walls. But in that single beam of light, there is a promise-God’s presence is not dependent on our circumstances. He is near to the broken.
He hears the prayers no one else hears.
This is not the end of My story.
It is the place where it changes.
Because God does not waste prisons-He uses them. He turns the worst nights into the strongest testimonies.
If you are in your darkest place today, remember: you are not forgotten.
You are being formed, not for your own glory, but for His. And one day, your pain will become someone else’s light.
HE SEES. HE HEARS. HE RESTORES.
HE IS MAKING YOU NEW.
2025
Persevere
Change Is Gonna Come
This drawing captures the moment between surrender and transformation. A solitary figure kneels at the edge of a cliff, one wing still attached while loose feathers drift toward the ground. The missing wing speaks of loss—not simply the loss of strength, but the loss of certainty, identity, and belonging. Yet the figure does not collapse. Instead, they remain upright, poised between gravity that pulls downward and an unseen hope that calls them upward.
The single remaining wing symbolizes resilience. It suggests that freedom is not found in perfect strength but in the courage to keep moving after something essential has been taken away. The falling feathers become fragments of an old life, while the cliff represents the threshold between who the person was and who they are becoming.
Emotionally, the work carries profound grief, but it is not a portrait of defeat. It is a portrait of resistance. The bowed posture reveals exhaustion, while the surviving wing reveals an unwillingness to surrender. There is anger toward systems that imprison the human spirit, but that anger is transformed into determination rather than destruction.
The accompanying reflection expands this symbolism into a broader spiritual journey. It rejects a faith motivated only by fear or reward and longs for a relationship with the Creator rooted in love itself. The desire to extinguish hellfire and burn away heaven is not a rejection of God, but a poetic way of asking whether genuine faith can exist without coercion, fear, or self-interest. It is a call to seek the Creator for who God is, rather than for what God gives or withholds.
The final hope extends beyond the individual. The artwork expresses a longing for renewal—for minds, hearts, and even nations. The repeated refrain, “Change is gonna come,” becomes both a personal confession and a collective prayer, especially for a people yearning to be free from oppression and falsehood.
“Sometimes freedom begins the moment we lose the wings we thought we needed. Real change does not start when the world changes around us; it begins when the heart refuses to stop hoping.” — Joshua, 2022
From brokenness
to purpose. From pain to calling
This is my story
During countless sleepless nights, Joshua filled his diaries with thoughts that words alone could no longer carry. When language failed him, he reached for charcoal and paper, allowing his hands to express what his voice could not. Over time, he created dozens of deeply personal drawings, each born from real experiences, memories, and inner struggles. Together, they tell the story of a journey across three countries and the unseen landscapes of the human heart—trauma and healing, exile and belonging, despair and hope, faith and freedom.
These works are not merely illustrations; they are visual chapters of a life. Every line carries a memory, every shadow holds a question, and every image bears witness to the search for truth, love, and the courage to become fully human.
“When I had no words left, my drawings began to speak.” — Joshua
Exclusive Exhibition Collection
A significant collection of Joshua’s original artwork has been intentionally withheld from public release. These exclusive pieces will be exhibited only at future art exhibitions, offering visitors a unique and immersive experience unavailable online.
The Becoming Joshua Art Exhibit
2022, Lansing MI
Interviews
Visited the Becoming Joshua art gallery held at Lansing Community College and talked with people who had gone through the exhibit. Interview by the Underground House Calls, Cameron.
Contact us
If you would like to host the Becoming Joshua Art Exhibit, please email us at becomingjoshua27@gmail.com
