Michael Pittman Shrinks Heads

The research Pittman refers to is his on going study of mental illness. As someone who has personal experiences with mental illness from anxiety on up, and experiences among family members and friends, Pittman says it tends to find its way into everything he does.

While working with images rooted in personal psychological experience, Pittman started researching the history of the treatment, stigmatization and classification of mental illness. Much of his inspiration came from the centuries-old texts, which he feels is more in line with what he’s trying to do in his work.

“They seemed far more intuitive, and far more closely linked to the symptoms that people feel today than do some of these scientific descriptions we have today. The intuitive nature of the way these, albeit not necessarily accurate, diagnoses were made and symptoms were described and connected to the medical and supernatural.”

Rather than working with recognizable objects, Pittman uses singular types of forms in his works. He layers images and removing images from the work to give only a taste of what’s behind the work. It’s this that allows Pittman to move away from a simple study on mental illness and examine the personal psychological experience of one’s mental life.

Pittman had been using somber black and whites in his work to convey his ideas, but he wasn’t able to convey a range of emotions. Now he’s using vibrant colours to present a broad range of ideas. It’s just one of the many challenges his work presents for him.

“To come up with non-stereotypical images, that aren’t obvious but speak to the feeling associated with this particular event, object or event [is the challenge]. It’s trying to come up with that singular image that can signify a very complex set of ideas that come from a very internal personal space.”

Pittman’s work will be on display from Sat October 11 – Sat November 1 at Newfoundland’s Leyton Gallery of Fine Art.

Pages: 1 2