Visions: Artists Living with Epilepsy

by Steven C. Schachter MD

Artists Living with Epilepsy is the art of epilepsy, captured in a book. You will discover beautiful, insightful, haunting images that reveal the souls of artists touched by epilepsy.

* Contains 200+ high-quality reproductions of works of art
* Includes the artists biographies
* CD-ROM of the artwork is also available separately or as part of the Deluxe Edition

144 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Naori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really interesting collaboration of mostly artists with epilepsy and some epileptic caretakers. I thought the book overall was impressive and I liked how each artist gave a brief memoir/personal statement about the relationship between art and epilepsy in their lives. I was hoping for more work and possibly more diversity of artists, but I did genuinely enjoy it. I went back and forth between my desire to see epilepsy represented in more of the artists’ work, with the understanding that this was a collection of work by artists with epilepsy, not necessarily art about it. I was really looking forward to seeing more representations of how these people experience seizures because I was excited to see how that would translate into visual art. If you didn’t know this was a collection of epileptic artists and were just looking at the images you would have no idea the book had anything to do with seizures. You need to read each artist’s story in order to understand the connection to their work. However, there were a few paintings & sculptures that really resonated with me and kind of materialized what a seizure, and everything surrounding it, feels like. I was actually able to find two paintings in the book and show them to someone close to me and say, “Look, this is what it’s like during a seizure and this is what I see afterwards.” So although I only found a few pieces that truly spoke to me, the overall collection was nice and I think there should be more projects of this kind. Also, I think one of the reasons that we read and love stories is because we can find ourselves in them, to locate our likeness in their pages, and that mirroring is powerful. So too is finding a reflection of yourself in art. I am thankful to have found a few pieces that mirror my experience and I think this could be similarly empowering for others who live with what can often be a very isolating disease.