Christopher Dalzell
Mentis Morbum: a Visual Study of a Broken Mind
curated by Takt
09.07-29.07.2016
Kunstraum Tapir, Weserstraße 11, 10247 Berlin-Friedrichshain
Mentis Morbum: a Visual Study of a Broken Mind
Mentis Morbum is a body of work exploring the subject of mental illness. The work is a visual representation of my experience with anxiety and how it manifests. The work has been informed by on going interactions people who live with a form of mental illness such as depression and anxiety.
The human mind is an expansive, mysterious realm. Psychology is relatively new branch of science and medicine. It is believed we haven’t even scratched the surface in terms of understanding mental illnesses and that it seems to be more common than first believed. Studies show that 45% of people will experience a form of mental illness at some stage in our lives. A person’s mental health is an extremely personal thing and can be difficult to express or explain. My work is intended to help people identify with their experiences and to hopefully encourage people to become engaged with conversation around the issue.
My work is not intended to view mental illness as a dark scary concept, but rather as an expression of the beautiful intricacies of the human mind. I wish to represent the vast complexities of psychological conditions to show that it extends far beyond the crude labels and definitions by which it is understood. I believe that our mental condition is very much a part of our being; it is the uniqueness of each individual that determines his or her emotional response to events in life. This body of work aims to represent these physical and emotional sensations in a way that and help clarify common interpretations of mental illness.
The body of work is a series of prints using traditional and experimental printing techniques in lithography.
artby-walrus.net
Reminiscent of Before | lithograph on paper | 2016
