Brian Saunders hates drugs but feels obliged to try new ones, “just for the drawing”
4th December 2012
The world of Art is a strange, but a fascinating place. The typically sensible self portrait is only produced in small numbers over the life time of an artist. However Brian Lewis Saunders, is far from typical and according to his girlfriend is in the grey boundary between really smart and creepy. Over the past 17 years he has produced 8,700 self portraits, “Every day is different. Like snowflakes and DNA and fingerprints, no two are the same.” This idea of tracking time and emotion through self portraits is fascinating. While the Victorian portraits provide social and economic information with the placement of object and painting Kings fatter to show their wealth, Brian’s vast array of self portraits are snap shots into his feelings and emotions of that time in space.
His new body of work are 50 self portraits that have each been done while under the influence of a different drug. He never pays for the drug, instead relies on people donating them to him. He has always maintained a deep distaste for drugs, but a driving passion for original art creation. The drug paintings are special because of the quality and contrast of each image is evident, and the viewer can clearly read his emotion, weather it be an extreme pain exploding from his head or a dreamy and playful experience.
Brian Lewis Saunders is by no means a one trick horse with his other work sounding conceptually interesting. Such as the collection of thousands of discarded photographs he’s spent years retrieving from bins around Johnson City.
The drug paintings are part of a forthcoming exhibition alongside Damien Hirst at the influential Maison Rouge gallery in Paris.
The Guardian has an excellent interview with him, click here.
Click here to go to his website
