Portraying schizophrenia

 Bryan Charnley’s art represents the serious effects Schizophrenia has on your mind. Diagnosed at 18 Bryan Charnley had to drop out of Leicester School of Art in order to combat his mental health disorder; Schizophrenia. In 1978, around the age 29, he began to paint again. In 1982, he began to address his inner life and his condition within his paintings.

Bryan’s life ended sadly, he committed suicide in 1991 with a painting left on his easel. This painting was part of 17 self-portraits Bryan he done whilst experimenting with his medication. Medication helps to stop symptoms of Schizophrenia and help people to cope with daily life without the worry of symptoms arising.

 It is this collection of work that I am interested in because, with each painting, you gradually see Bryan’s symptoms returning. They become scarier and more frightening. You start to see what he must have been feeling and how his disorder was gradually taking over his mind.

Below is the link to his website which shows his portraits in order with a small summary of each on the left.

http://www.bryancharnley.info/1portriat.asp

I was particularly interested in portrait 2 because it really emphasises how much some people with Schizophrenia need their medication. Bryan had only cut back a little on his medication by the second portrait, and already the painting looks dark and deep, a complete contrast to his first self-portrait. The painting is made up of dark blues and browns. He looks confused, and in the background there looks to be an eye. In the summary he explains that he was feeling paranoid and felt sensitive to human voices (this explains the rabbit-ear as he felt like a wild animal).  I think you can really see the paranoia coming through the painting because of the eye staring at him from behind.

I was also really interested in portrait number 9. It is a very bizarre painting; very ambiguous and abstract. The lips around the outside could possibly signify the voices he was hearing. In the summary, it says he had hallucinations. This painting must be portraying how he saw himself during these hallucinations.

It is amazing to go through these paintings, one by one and see how his mind and his grasp on reality dilapidated and became obscured. He was an excellent artist and it is sad to hear of someone so young and talented die in such an unpleasant state. 

A cat obsession? Louis Wain

 

 

An artist I recently found is Louis Wain. He is particularly known for his drawings/paintings of cats. This may sound quite dull at first, but the interesting thing is that this English artist had Schizophrenia and some psychologists believe that you can see this in his artwork!

 

He lived between 1860 and 1939. He was declared insane sometime in 1924 and was put in a hospital in Tooting. After a short period of time here, people noticed Wain’s talent and a fund was set up for him so that he could live at ease for the remainder of his life.

 

His artwork certainly is individual, and his cats are inimitable. There is so much detail within each picture and there is a vast amount of colour used. He has made the ‘cat’ his own; from portraits to scenes of cats dressed up, Wain has created such an array of cats. It is thought that the paintings with the detailed patterns in are the ones that show his Schizophrenia, but we can’t really know for sure.

 

However these paintings are my particular favourites. He must have spent hours painting these since the patterns are perfectly formed. Some paintings remind me of Eastern paintings, like Buddhism paintings, because of the vivid colours used and the different shapes used. He uses lines of various thickness and curves to create the patterns, and these curves meander round each other to create a busy but orderly effect.

 

In other works, it’s the eyes that define the painting.  He paints large eyes onto cats, forming different expressions; sometimes surprise other times happy. In some of his paintings, he uses bright lime yellow colours for the eyes. This then grasps your attention straight away.

 

I hope from reading these descriptions of his work, you will study further into these weird and fantastic art pieces. Many prints of his work are available online as well as in some art galleries.