Home | Statement | Early
Work | Allegorical Paintings | Bondaged
Heads | Self-Portraits | Contact
Biography
View video
Bryan Charnley was an artist whose
work vividly portrays the effects of schizophrenia. This
website shows a selection of his work and its development
from the early paintings to the final Self Portrait
Series. Bryan Charnley intended his work to show
the common humanity of the sufferer and how the artist
can transform the most negative situations into the
basis for creative inspiration.
Bryan Charnley was
born on 20th September 1949 in Stockton on Tees. With
his twin brother he grew up in London, Chiselhurst
in Kent, Cranfield, where his father worked as a
Senior Lecturer and finally in Bromham in Bedford.
In 1967, aged 17 he suffered a nervous breakdown
but was able to study at Leicester School of Art
in 1968. He gained as place at Central School of
Art and Design in Holborn, London in 1969 but was
unable to complete the course due to another breakdown
later diagnosed as acute schizophrenia. From 1971
until 1977 he lived at home with his parents between
periods of hospitalisation and treatment including
ECT. In 1978 he moved to Bedford and began painting.
The first paintings were representational works including
large flower paintings. From 1982 onwards his work
began to address his inner life, dreams and mental
states particularly the nature of schizophrenia.
In 1984 four of his paintings were purchased by the
Bethlem Royal Hospital for their permanent collection.
He had a solo exhibition at the Dryden Street Gallery,
Covent Garden in London 1989 and exhibited two paintings
at the Visions exhibition at the Royal College
of Art in 1990. However the little recognition he
received was outweighed by the day to day problems
of his illness and the heavy medication he was prescribed
to counter it. His final work, The Self Portrait
Series was painted as he experimented with varying
dosages of medication. The 17 portraits show graphically
the terrible suffering of mental illness. In July
1991 Bryan Charnley commttited suicide. Subsequently
the Self Portrait Series was exhibited at the National
Portrait Gallery in 1992 and the paintings are now
at the Prince of Wales International Centre for SANE
research in Oxford.
|
|