Lorna Sankey muses on the work of artist Bryan Charnley, recounting her responses and reflections to the items.
artwork can train us a lot in regards to the human expertise of sickness that’s tough to convey by way of medical clarification alone. It requires us, the viewer, to do a number of the work, by way of wanting, decoding, regarding tough private experiences, and accepting ambiguity. We’re offered with a person’s distinctive perspective and the way they select to precise it, and we take from it what we are able to or will. Typically, we profit from revisiting the work on totally different events, seeing and studying extra every time.
This essay has developed following many classes of ekphrasis, the follow of writing descriptively about artwork. I’ve engaged on this follow while Bryan Charnley’s ‘Bondage Heads’ collection. Bryan Charnley (1949-91) was a British artist who depicted vivid portrayals of his expertise of residing with schizophrenia. He said that making artwork was for him a type of exorcism (Charnely, 1988).
Puppet Schizophrene, Brooch Schizophrene, Nail Schizophrene and Fish Schizophrene had been all painted between 1983-88. The primary of those resides in a non-public assortment; the second has been bought by Bethlem Museum of the Thoughts; the latter two by the Wellcome Assortment. These work fascinate me. Writing about them ensured I regarded carefully on the particulars, and mirrored on my reactions. The work remind me of individuals from my private {and professional} lives who’ve been identified with schizophrenia, and the methods during which I’ve tried to emotionally and intellectually perceive their experiences. Translating the photographs and interpretations into phrases helped me perceive what I used to be seeing.
Aside from figuring out that Charnley was identified with schizophrenia, skilled psychological misery all through his life, and had intervals of being institutionalised, I do know little or no in regards to the artist. This has allowed me to get acquainted along with his work by myself phrases, permitting me to interpret his work by way of the lens of experiences from my very own life. It has additionally jogged my memory of the worth of sluggish artwork with out predetermined data of the items.
Composition
All the work have an identical composition- a head fills a lot of the canvas, proven in profile. All put on headscarves which cowl the eyes, ears and mouths. Solely the flesh of the nostril and a part of the cheek is seen. Throughout the scarf define are a number of scenes, divided into their very own sections, however typically overlapping into one another. This will point out how Charnley skilled his psyche- as separate feelings, experiences and recollections merging, complicated and invading one another.
The scenes inside the bondage heads are packed full with photos, which I discover beneath. This leads to busy and chaotic environments. It’s tough to know the place to start out wanting; there is no such thing as a pure starting to the painted narratives. The attention is drawn forwards and backwards between totally different components, unable to retain focus on anyone picture for lengthy with out being distracted by one other. My mind robotically tried to make hyperlinks between photos, endeavouring to construct a narrative. At occasions, the a number of totally different faces within the work, typically proven from totally different angles, resulted within the phantasm of motion, like a movie reel repeating the identical sequence time and again. With no starting or finish it’s an limitless, ever sooner sequence of repeating clips which might be laborious to flee from. It may be haunting, terrifying, complicated and unsettling. An perception into the on a regular basis expertise of the painter maybe.
Senses
By way of the components of the face which permit us to sense (sight, scent, hear) coated by scarves, , the bondage heads have restricted contact with the skin world. The mouths are unable to talk, style or breathe; ears unable to listen to; eyes unable to see. Communication and understanding are muted. Solely the nostril is uncovered, capable of breathe for essentially the most fundamental survival operate.
These facial options are depicted elsewhere, indifferent from the context of their faces. In Brooch Schizophrene an ear is mixed with the mechanical components of a motorbike. In Puppet Schizophrene we’re taken underwater, the place tough jagged waves toss a indifferent mouth round, the lips bleeding into the waves. In Fish Schizophrene, eight an identical eyes look straight at us, superimposed over an city scene across the fringe of the pinnacle like a ornament. Wherever else within the portray we glance, these eyes stay watching us. A Ferris wheel has a watch, ear, and mouth rather than carriages, in a surrealist dream-like picture. In one other scene a girl dives or has fallen headfirst right into a crowd of monstrous and indignant heads, ears and mouths, a nightmarish crowd that surges angrily in direction of us.
Perspective
The angles and distance of photos fluctuate inside every portray, giving a distorted sense of actuality and area. In Brooch Schizophrene, pool balls on the identical desk fluctuate drastically in measurement. In Puppet Schizophrene, a self-portrait is split between two sections, staring instantly and intensely at us from each. Scanning between the 2 is disconcerting and complicated. In Fish Schizophrene there are a dizzying number of views. We glance upwards at towering buildings that fall at opposing angles to one another, then throughout to close by blocks of flats from a top. We additionally look down onto a road the place pedestrians appear unaware that we watch them from above. We observe road scenes shut up and from a distance, throughout night time and day. We’re on the bottom, within the air, underwater. There are various methods to view a scenario.
Trying by way of and into
Some scenes look by way of home windows. This can provide the impression that we’re trapped inside, searching, with restricted integration with the skin world. In Brooch Schizophrene, a hand components some curtains to look outdoors at a bleak, cloudy panorama. In Puppet Schizophrene, a face appears by way of damaged tinted glass at a seaside with a constructing in entrance. The face has been minimize by the glass, injured at making an attempt to flee or no less than from making an attempt to look out. The purple filter of the glass alters the view, which is clearer with out it. The determine has damaged by way of one other layer of distortion to get to the reality, a metaphor maybe for the filter that the sickness or remedy could have positioned on Charnley’s interplay with the world.
Actuality
There are worlds inside worlds. In Puppet Schizophrene a line of individuals stroll out of a door positioned on the facet of a self-portrait of the painter’s personal head, jagged and cracked like rock. The figures stroll out of the portal and right into a portray, all entering into the identical course, till they’re hidden from our view past the boundary of the body, to an unknown place we can not see. There are layers upon layers of actuality and tales with unknown endings. This creates a way that inside Charnley’s thoughts, these overlapping narratives saved travelling additional and additional inside themselves. Elsewhere within the portray a signpost provides two choices: Actuality and Internal Expertise. On the other facet of the pinnacle appears to look, largely hidden, a 3rd check in the identical style- barely seen, it says Artwork, as if that is the third possibility.
Privateness
Essentially the most hanging photos in these work present Charnley’s notion that others had been capable of learn his ideas, to spy into his mind, essentially the most invasive and terrifying of actions. In Brooch Schizophrene the crown of a head has been cut up cleanly open as if by medical process, to disclose the gray mind inside. The mind doesn’t seem to have been minimize however it’s parted in two like a pair of lips, into which a big microphone has been thrust. The cable extends outdoors of the pinnacle, as if the innermost, personal ideas of the thoughts are being amplified out into the general public world past. He’s uncovered and susceptible.
Establishments
Some scenes, inside and outdoors of the heads, are of institutional settings and folks, a reminder maybe of the time he spent inside psychiatric hospitals and the affect this had on his sense of normality. In Puppet Schizophrene, sinister figures with featureless faces seem to put on uniforms in a gray concrete setting the place one other determine is behind bars. The theme of imprisonment is echoed in the identical scene on an additional degree by way of a flying hen, trapped inside the microcosm of a portray.
Faith
In Nail Schizophrene, nails could also be a reference to the crucifixion. Within the prime proper of the portray two crosses will be seen. In entrance of those, a hammer is about to knock a nail in direction of the centre. The nail can also be a unadorned girl’s physique, and the motion seems to be operated by a faceless clothed girl who’s pulling a lever. Two extra human nails are beneath. In the identical portray, a drained wanting man wears a crown of thorns and smokes a cigarette. He’s watched carefully by a powerful, bald, authoritarian-looking man, who appears to have energy over him and is supervising. Maybe Charnley felt an affinity with Jesus.
The unexplained
The id and function of some objects and shapes aren’t clear. This can be on function, as Charnley was capable of skilfully paint sensible depictions. There are obscure shapes that drift throughout a scene and out to the facet, maybe just like perceptions and summary sensations that Charnley wasn’t- as is close to unimaginable to take action completely- capable of perceive inside his personal thoughts.
Conclusion
Taking the time to look carefully and slowly at Charnley’s vivid work has been a thought-provoking journey. It has led me to assume deeply about his expertise of residing with a analysis of schizophrenia, and in flip the experiences of individuals I’ve identified in my very own life. Photographs can say a lot greater than phrases, partially due to the private associations and recollections they’ll stir. This leads to a really particular person expertise when partaking with artwork. This essay has recounted my first impressions of the Bondage Heads, nonetheless I think that with time and repeated wanting I’ll see extra inside their frames. The act of considering paintings that communicates lived expertise of sickness is a robust studying software for anybody working in well being and social care, that I hope will change into extra commonplace sooner or later.
Photographs of the bondage heads will be seen right here: https://www.bryancharnley.information/bondage-heads/_0002_puppet-schizophrene/
Concerning the creator
Lorna Sankey is an Occupational Therapist with a variety of scientific experiences in group and inpatient settings. She at the moment works as a Analysis Affiliate on the College of East Anglia. Previous to working in healthcare Lorna studied Artwork Historical past and Literature and may be very within the relationship between the humanities and healthcare, particularly the position of artwork and literature in speaking lived experiences of sickness and incapacity to healthcare college students and practitioners. She will be contacted in LinkedIn.
References
Bryan Charnley, Artist’s Assertion, 1988 (Artist Statements – Bryan Charnley)
