Monika Fine Art: Wassily Kandinsky, Bryan Charnley, Bryan Lewis Saunders

I started my artist research with a few artists whose art I thought could really relate to my theme.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)

A Russian born painter, teacher and theorist. He spent many years studying the properties of colour. In his later work, he abandoned the use of subject matter completely, only loosely relating it to the outside world. He believed that art should have direct impact on the viewer's soul and not be restricted by the materialistic world.

Often basing his compositions on music, he tried to use colours in such a way as if they were instruments, basically trying to show what music would look like if it was made up of colours instead of sounds. For example, he would associate red (a very confident, glowing colour) with a tuba or a deep cello. A cooler colour, such as blue (which was Kandinsky’s favourite colour, representing peacefulness and spirituality) would be the flutes, cellos and organs. Black and white represented different types of pauses and silences.

Bryan Charnley (1949-1991)

Growing up in London, Bryan Charnley suffered many nervous breakdowns during his life, that later made it impossible for him to to complete an Art course. He was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia around 1969.

His later paintings mainly address his inner life, dreams and mental states. In his Self Portrait Series he experimented with painting under varying doses of medication. He committed suicide in July 1991.

Artist's note:

" I feel like a target for peoples cruel remarks. Especially negroes. What is going on? I had sweet talked a girl to suicide because I had no tongue, no real tongue, and could only flatter. This is very much involved with why I am ill. The nail in the mouth expresses this. The people around me cannot understand how I was so stupid and cannot forgive me. I can only say that I cannot socialise at all because of my weakness verbally and this is been, produced a tragedy. Thus I am a target. The nails in my eyes express that I cannot see whereas other people seem to have extra sensory perception and I am blind in this respect. Love hurts. I keep well way now from women on the advice of my psychiatrist. On two Depixol tablets plus two tablets of anti-depressants, Tryptisol."

Bryan Lewis Saunders (1969)

Born in Washington, Saunders is a performance artist, videographer and performance poet known for his disturbing spoken word rants, tragic art performances and stand-up tragedy. (CLICK)

Artist's statement:

"After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of self. So I devised another experiment where everyday I took a different drug and drew myself under the influence. Within weeks I became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage. I am still conducting this experiment but over greater lapses of time. I only take drugs that are given to me."

10mg Ambien