Migraine and Visual Arts
| Author: Klaus Podoll | 26. March 2005 |
| Edited by: Klaus Podoll |
J.J. Ignatius Brennan
Artist's website
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, Migraine Man Suffers Again, 1990. © 2007 Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. (see here)
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, an Irishman born in the UK in 1949, is an artist of international repute who is best known for his drawings and sculptures in the tradition of the surrealist movement. Brennan's art education began at Colchester School of Art, Essex, was then pursued at Bristol Polytechnic and completed at Slade School, University College London. From 1973, Brennan worked as a lecturer, but he gave up teaching in 1990 in order to concentrate full-time on his own work. Since 1980, he has continuously exhibited both in the UK and abroad and his artworks can be found in collections in the UK, USA, Hungary and Japan. Among other awards, he won the first prize in the 1987 fourth National Migraine Art competition and, 5 years later, the second prize in the 1992 "Migraine Images" competition, organized by the Migraine Trust and Glaxo Pharmaceuticals.
"After I did this drawing Migraine Man, I did a tryptich of a development of Migraine Man. The 3 were called: 1. Migraine Man Attacked; 2. Migraine Man Suffers; 3. Migraine Man Goes to Pieces. It might be useful for you to see as I think it describes more fully my feelings and reactions to migraine."
(Letter to Derek Robinson, January 18, 1998)
"The five sausages represent the fingers when they seem to be enlarged and just about connected to the body, the dotted lines indicate this impression that there is a loss of feeling in the arms. Sometimes it seems that I could have more than one hand, this is suggested by the duplicate hand at the bottom of the picture. The large cone aimed at Migraine Man's head represents the searing pain, the hammers the repetitive, duller sort of headache. The two pincers indicate the severe stomach cramps and the nausea associated with some attacks. Miscellaneous zigzags represent the imagery of the visual aura, whereas the dark background suggests the loss of vision experienced at the height of some attacks."
(Letter to Derek Robinson, December 10, 2000)
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, Migraine Man Attacked, 1992. © 2007 Glaxo Wellcome, Inc.
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, Migraine Man Suffers, 1992. © 2007 Glaxo Wellcome, Inc.
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, Migraine Man Goes to Pieces, 1992. © 2007 Glaxo Wellcome, Inc.
Brennan was certainly qualified to participate in the two said competitions, having been a migraine sufferer, like his younger brother and sister, since the age of 11 when he first experienced episodes of visual loss, quite frightening at times, with zigzagged clouds obscuring parts or the entire field of vision. These visual disturbances were frequently followed by slight nausea and bilateral numbness of the face or the limbs. It was not until the age of 18 that he really became aware of headache attacks severely debilitating his ability to work. These acute headache attacks, with a pain of unilateral location and pulsating quality, would then manifest approximately once a week, last up to a day, and co-occur with nausea and hypersensitivity to light and sound. Frequently, the migraine attacks were associated with a variety of aura symptoms of basilar migraine, including dysarthria, ataxia, bilateral paresthesias and numbness of the areas around the mouth and nose and all four limbs (with the left hand and foot usually being affected most strongly). Most common were bilateral visual auras with loss of vision in the temporal and nasal fields of vision, bilateral central scotomas or concentrically contracted visual fields, the latter occurring with the most severe migraine attacks. During these visual auras, which lasted several minutes, hallucinations with cloudy shapes, zigzags, triangles and sometimes also round forms appeared to move across the fields of vision. Tunnel vision was often accompanied by mosaic illusion in the area of preserved vision, with a breaking up of perceived images into pieces. During episodes of metamorphopsia, objects or faces were often seen as deformed, unsymmetrical, and with displacement of parts of the perceived images. For example, when viewing a face, the artist would sometimes get the visual impression that the eyes tended to look tilted and one would go off and enlarge and the other would seemingly go away from the face instead of being in line. On some occasions, the artist experienced macropsia, with objects apparently seeming bigger and changing proportions relative to other things, and polyopia like sun-images which manifested as a multiplication of images arranged in horizontal or oblique rows. Rarely the artist experienced a loss of the three-dimensional aspect of vision, so that "everything appeared flattened". Body image disturbances experienced by the artist included episodes with macrosomatognosia of the face or the hands, illusory reduplication of the hands, and aschematia of the upper and lower arms. It was not until the artist's late thirties that the frequency, but not the intensity and variability of his migraine attacks began to decline, now recurring every 4-8 weeks.
According to the artist, he had already drawn a lot when he was a boy, and his decision to make a career as a professional artist was firmly established at age 18 when he began his formal art education. "I started with pictures of my migraine experiences," said the artist, "unconsciously rather than deliberately, when I was at art school. I used to do a lot of drawing of landscapes at that time and I often found I would be drawing clouds not just in the sky but everywhere, which was, I think, a reference to the voids experienced during visual loss. I also used serrated zigzag shapes in my drawings, symbolizing the experience of a whole being broken up, of not being able to put the pieces together, but I don't think that I was then aware of their origin in my visual migraine experiences. I didn't want to acknowledge this, I wouldn't have seen it as a legitimate means to do good art, but later I realized I was wrong. It's like a reference, like a support, which I'm priviliged to have access to. Clouds, zigzags and other imagery are part of my own personal visual vocabulary, but which certainly has come out of migraine experiences, I'm absolutely sure. I don't tend to do that deliberately, but when it suits a particular subject, e.g. to represent a feeling or an emotion, I make use of some of these images in different ways, or in combination with others, depending on the subject."
"I was introduced to Giorgio de Chirico by a tutor at art school who noted certain similarities between the imagery I used and that of de Chirico. When I first saw his work it was love at first sight... The similarities between my sculptures and de Chirico's work as observed by my tutor were concerned with the shapes I used and the way I put them together - circles, triangles, arches. I would construct them at various angles so that they balanced tenuously, they had a certain melancholy and threat (maybe I am reading this into them retrospectively) but at the same time a calmness and stillness but with the possibility of collapsing at any time. Maybe I was unconsciously equating this with the migraine state when one is trying to keep everything together before becoming debilitated. I expressed this more literally and clearly in the Glaxo tryptich."
(Email to Klaus Podoll, August 13, 2003)
"Dr Podoll has found that artists with migraine are often particularly attracted to the works of other artists who share their migraine experiences. These shared experiences 'act like a filter,' contributing to the an artist's perspective and leading to 'elective affinities between migraine-inspired artists,' he said. In a presentation at the 14th annual International Headache Congress in Philadelphia, titled 'Elective Affinities Between Migraine-Inspired Artists,' Dr Podoll discussed the influence that migraine art has on other artists with migraine. 'The notion of elective affinities between migraine-inspired artists relates to the idea that the passion and interest that one artist may take in the work and life of another artist may be governed or regulated by their sharing of the experience of migraine aura as artistic inspiration,' he said. ... Contemporary artist J. J. Ignatius Brennan discussed his interest in works by Giorgio de Chirico, who had migraine with aura. In art school, Mr Brennan's tutor pointed out that there were similarities in their work, especially in the way that shapes were put together ... 'When I first saw [the work of Giorgio de Chirico], it was love at first sight,' said Mr Brennan." (Partridge, 2009) [more]
It was not until 1987, when the artist participated in the fourth National Migraine Art competition, that he definitely realized the impact of migraine experiences on his art, as clearly expressed during an interview following the exhibition "The Art of Migraine", organized by the Headache Research Foundation at Faulkner Hospital in Boston. An article by journalist David Stipp (1987) included the following report:
By David Stipp
Many migraine victims don't want to talk or even think about their illness. [Mr.] Brennan, a London artist and teacher who won this year's £ 300 first prize, says he kept his appearance short at the awards ceremony. "I didn't want to look too hard at the paintings," says Mr. Brennan, who has suffered migraine attacks every few weeks for the past 30 years. "It was too many migraines in too small an area."
When Mr. Brennan heard about the contest, his first reaction was to put the idea right out of his mind. "Migraines have totally bad associations for me," he says, including prolonged nausea, excruciating headaches, and numbing paralysis of his arms and legs. "I don't like thinking about them."
But he did like thinking about the prizes. So with encouragement from his wife, he drew a picture representing himself having an attack - a stylized human figure, minus a left arm and leg, sketched in black on a red background. "I wanted to get it over with," he says, "so I worked very quickly."
Like other migraine artists, Mr. Brennan found depicting the disorder therapeutic to some extent. And he began to realize that images suggested by migraine had subconsciously crept into many of his past pictures. Now he is steeling himself to enter the next contest.
Meanwhile, Mr. Brennan, who also sculpts, has spent part of his prize money on a new router to help shape his latest works. "This is the first real advantage I've ever got out of my migraines,' he says. 'It has made up for a few attacks."
The use of migraine experiences as a source of artistic inspiration can be demonstrated in a large number of Brennan's artworks beyond his prize-winning portrayals of his migraine attacks, as will be exemplified by 3 drawings and 2 sculptures produced by the artist in 1993. "These 3 pictures, entitled Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," said the artist, "were done after a good friend had died. I've cited the Monty Python song as title, because my friend, who was, in fact, a part-time comedian, stipulated that it be sung at his funeral. I've used the black scotoma/zigzag image in all of them because it symbolizes something unknown and disturbing (to do with the loss of vision during migraine)."
"In No. 1, I've pulled apart the darkness in the hope of finding something else! - and things emerge, with life. The star and zigzag shapes are also derived from migrainous visual disturbances. The cross denotes religion and suffering."
"I don't think that I ever made any intellectual link between migraine and religion/spirituality; rather, suffering was the connection for me... 'Out of suffering comes renewal' - this is very relevant to my migraine attacks, the next day I have so much more energy..."
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: No. 1, 1993. © 1993 J.J. Ignatius Brennan
"No. 2 is probably out of sequence and should really be the first. (Artistic temperament and logic don't necessarily go hand in hand.) Again, I've used the dark zigzagged shape to signify something unknown, unseen, unfocusable. It's a sombre image which reflects my feelings at the time with only the ball/fruit shape on the top giving hope. The overall image is a bit like a (Migraine) Xmas tree."
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: No. 2, 1993. © 1993 J.J. Ignatius Brennan
"No. 3 starts to get a little bit clearer. It's possible that it reflects the stage in a migraine when my vision gets better, but I don't make decisions that coldly when I work. The yellow is a hopeful colour. In all 3 drawings, I've used the enlarged, heavy, feet-like shapes, which give a rather useless, stuck, immobile feeling, referring to the experience of insecurity of gait during my migraine attacks."
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: No. 3, 1993. © 1993 J.J. Ignatius Brennan
"The Sculpture You Want is Underneath, is a more playful work. Again, I've used the black zigzag as a device to encourage viewers to imagine what might be there and how the shapes could combine."
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, The Sculpture You Want is Underneath, 1993. © 1993 J.J. Ignatius Brennan
"In Neo-Roman Offering, the zigzag shapes literally separate the stone shapes but also serve to combine them into a coherent image. Overall, as regards my migraine attacks, I've tried to make a positive thing out of something essentially negative and annoying. This applies to all the works, both drawings and sculptures."
J.J. Ignatius Brennan, Neo-Roman Offering, 1993. © 1993 J.J. Ignatius Brennan
The life and work of J.J. Ignatius Brennan clearly document the significance of migraine experiences as a factor of artistic creativity, which is confirmed by the artist's own account. The influence of migraine on Brennan's art took place subconsciously to begin with, but the participation in the National Migraine Art competition made the artist realize it in its entire scope. It is not intended to suggest that all examples of the artist's work are illustrations of his migraine experiences, which is only true for his prize-winning Migraine Art pictures, but it can evidently be stated that he has used his experiences of basilar migraine as one of the sources of inspiration for his artworks.
References
Anonymous. Artists capture impact of a migraine attack. Gen Pract Weekly 1992; 42: 400.
Chatterjee A. The neuropsychology of visual artistic production. Neuropsychologia 2004; 42: 1568-1583.
Chatterjee A. The neuropsychology of visual art: conferring capacity. International Review of Neurobiology 2006; 74: 39-49. [PDF]
Lelchuk Staricoff R. Arts in health: a review of the medical literature. Arts Council England, Research report 36, August 2004.
Emery AEH. Art and neurology. Practical neurology 2004; 4: 366-371. [PDF]
Nicola U, Podoll K. L'aura di Giorgio de Chirico. Arte emicranica e pittura metafisica. Mimesis, Milano, 2003.
Partridge M. Exploring the Influences of Artists Who Experience Migraine With Aura. Consultant Life - Consultations in Primary Care, September 15, 2009.
Podoll K, Robinson D. Migraine experiences as artistic inspiration in a contemporary artist. J Roy Soc Med 2000; 93: 263-265.
Podoll K, Robinson D. Visual migraine aura as source of artistic inspiration in professional painters. Neurol Psychiat Brain Res 2001; 9: 81-84.
Podoll K, Robinson D. Migräne und spirituelle Erfahrung. Ariadne, Aachen, 2001.
Podoll K, Robinson D. Pictorial representations of macrosomatognosia occurring as migraine aura symptom. Neurol Psychiat Brain Res 2003; 10: 125-128.
Podoll K, Robinson D. Migraine Art - The Migraine Experience from Within. North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California 2009, p. 297-318.
Stipp D. If you want to know how migraine feels, just take a look at it. At art show, sufferers give glimpse of awful world; The shock of bagel vision. The Wall Street Journal, 9th November 1987, 1, 20.
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