Bitter Darlings | On art, imperfection, and what it means to never be broken-hearted.

Something happens when a woman decides to stop editing herself. Not the polished version she learned to present, the one shaped by other people’s comfort, other people’s timelines, but a real awareness and strength that appears right in the middle of a hard chapter, in the face of doubt, criticism, or irresolution. It’s where she picks up a brush, laces up her shoes, or simply refuses to be defined by what she survived. That is where Bitter Darlings lives.

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For this month’s Triple Take Feature, we’re spotlighting a self-taught artist, educator, and founder.

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Introducing Zarinah, the Atlanta-based creator behind Bitter Darlings, an art and athleisure brand rooted in the belief that women deserve to see themselves fully, not smoothed down to something easier to look at. What began as a personal practice of processing pain through paint has grown into a WORLD. Original fine art, wearable pieces, and a brand philosophy built around the motto Never Broken-Hearted. Her figures are bold, imperfect, and emotionally open.

Zarinah creates from a place that most people spend their whole lives trying to get back to. The version of herself that was set aside during marriage, during motherhood, during the years when responsibility asked everything and left little room for her own voice. She didn’t lose that woman. She paused her. And when the hardest chapter of her life arrived, she found her again through art.

I had the pleasure of speaking with the artist about her journey, her work, and the courage it takes to build something new from the wreckage of something old.

Zarinah speaks about what happens when we reframe imperfection, using it as a philosophy rather than a flaw, about creativity as healing, and about what it means to represent all women when you started by representing only yourself. She invites us to see her story as a macrocosm, a reflection of what many women know but rarely say aloud: that the life you are rebuilding, even when it does not feel beautiful yet, carries a beauty waiting to be discovered.

Zarinah is an Atlanta-based self-taught artist who, eleven years ago, began painting whimsical, layered, emotionally open portraits of women. She calls them her Bitter Darlings. They are bold and imperfect. Their emotions are unresolved on purpose. The viewer decides what they see. That choice is part of the work. What most people don’t know when they encounter the work is where it actually came from.

“Creating under a different name gave me the freedom to step fully into a new chapter. It allowed me to separate the past from the identity I was building through my art.”

Bitter Darlings was born after Zarinah’s divorce. Her last name had belonged to her marriage, and using it for her work felt like carrying something she had already set down. Choosing an artist name was less a branding decision and more an act of reclamation. “Emotionally and creatively, it feels like ownership of my story,” she says, “and the space to express myself without carrying a name that no longer felt like mine.”

Before this chapter, she was a wife and mother of two young children. Her life was shaped by responsibility and routine, a structure that inevitably sidelines the parts of you that belong only to yourself. The easy word for it is lost. She prefers paused. “Not lost,” she says. “Just paused.” Art gave her somewhere to return to.

That return felt like freedom. “At this point in my life I’m no longer driven by fear,” she says. “I’m driven by hope and optimism, even in the face of adversity. Art became a space where that perspective could live and grow.”

The early work was deeply personal, a way to externalize what she was feeling in the aftermath of her divorce. But the more she created, the more the work outgrew her. The shift from painting her own emotions to representing all women happened naturally, never as a strategy. “The more I created, the more I realized that those feelings were not just mine,” she says.

Today the Bitter Darlings universe spans original fine art paintings, an art-driven athleisure line, and a brand philosophy rooted in the idea that beauty and chaos can live inside the same moment. The name itself is a study in contrast. Bitter and darling. Two things that should not belong together. Yet there they are, holding steady.

Zarinah describes her paintings as beautiful, whimsical, and messy all at once. Most people would choose one. She chooses all three deliberately. “Life is rarely just one thing,” she says. “My brushstrokes are imperfect, and that’s intentional because life itself is layered that way.” Imperfection is not a flaw in the work. It’s the argument the work is making.

Extending that argument from the canvas to the body was a natural progression. The athleisure line is built on the same belief: that art should move with you, that wellness and creativity are not separate categories but the same conversation. “For me, art is wellness,” she says. “Creating it and experiencing it can both be healing. That emotional connection is a form of wellness that many people overlook.”

“Sometimes art reflects something that’s already inside a person but hasn’t fully been recognized yet. When someone sees a piece and connects with it, it can remind them of their strength or help them see themselves in a different light.”

At the heart of the brand sits its motto: Never Broken-Hearted. Not an instruction to avoid pain, but a statement about where power actually lives. “No one should hold the power to break your heart or define your happiness,” she says. “True power comes from within, from the way you carry yourself, care for yourself, and push forward despite adversity.”

In her world, that is not a slogan. It is a practice. It looks like giving yourself grace, setting boundaries, accepting the chapters that were difficult and understanding that they helped shape who you are. “Being perfectly imperfect means accepting that and still showing up fully as yourself. It is about authenticity rather than perfection.”

For anyone in the middle of a chapter that does not feel beautiful yet, she has something to say, not as an artist, but as someone who has lived it.

“Not every chapter feels beautiful while you are living through it, and that is okay. Life moves in seasons. Stay hopeful, stay optimistic, and keep moving forward. Sometimes the chapters that feel the hardest are the ones that eventually lead you to rediscover yourself.”

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Website: www.bitterdarlings.com