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'THROUGH THE EYES OF A SCHIZOPHRENIC'

by Lanx

Talking about Art and Mental illness, one of the most difficult things I've found is that Schizophrenia is sort of, all consuming, even to the extent that in Art it limits the imagination, mostly to expressions of itself, so lots of folks make Art which depicts their condition or how their condition makes them feel. This is what I was doing until recently, I'd put the headphones on, turn the music up to full blast and make Art in which I tried to depict my condition or how my condition affected me........why? because I wanted folks to understand better about Schizophrenia. Then one day The Socialist Party asked me to design some Posters for them, Posters which had a Contemporary Socialist Message in them. I agreed and it made me think about World events and subjects of National Concern and I suddenly felt liberated and my head was full of subjects to depict. So, I'm writing this to share my experience with you because 'Subject Matter' in Art is important and if like me you’re stuck with depicting Schizophrenia or Schizophrenia related subjects (which isn’t a bad thing, its good to express through Art) but if you find that you’ve expressed Schizophrenia as much as you can and are stuck for subject matter...........Look to the World and what’s happening in it and depict what you see, the World and World events are just full of subject matter, for instance How do you view the War in Iraq? or what about your view of the starving children in Africa? these are 'Contemporary Subjects' and we are Contemporary Artists, this is our time and these things in the World affect us and we can have a unique view of them, if, instead of allowing our condition to dictate and limit us to solely depicting itself, we depict World and National events 'As seen through the eyes of a Schizophrenic'. Do not let the World and its events pass you by without saying something about it through Art, I know I won’t. I have enclosed some samples of the sort of stuff I am doing, I hope I have encouraged you Good Luck.

Lanx.