Artist Takes Different Drug Every Day and Draws His Self-Portrait
In 1995, artist Bryan Lewis Saunders started a project to create a new self portrait every day for the rest of his life. While this alone sounds like a crazy idea, some of the portraits are being made under the influence of various drugs.
By now, he has created about 8,000 self-portraits and according to his website, “within weeks [of the experiment] he became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage.”
Nevertheless, he continued the project, but under medical supervision becoming a frequent guest at the hospital. The series of portraits are interesting and even educational – you can observe the difference that various drugs make on human brain.
Now have a look at the pictures but don’t try this at home.
Website: bryanlewissaunders.org
Psilocybin Mushrooms
Absinth
Bryan says that “today we live in a narcissistic and obsessive culture, totally overflowing with drugs. And as an artist I am the filter”.
Cocaine
Crystalmeth
Hash
Marijuana
Morphine
Ritilin
Salvia Divinorum
Valium
Huffing Gas
Dilaudid
Abilify / Xanax / Ativan
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<3
Weird.
friggin awesomesauce.
♥♥
Crazy … but yeah … AWESOME
Loved this when I 1st saw it….and might I say for the stuff I have tried…lol very accurate.
Hmmm…
Where’s the speed example, I have deadlines to meet.
Interesting
“Don’t try this at home”?
Where then?!
This is really interesting.
Sign me up!!! lol
Total faker… no way one can “draw” anything under salvia. the drawings are cool but are all stereotypical as to the “effects” of that drugs he supposedly took. The Xanax one is pretty obvious, go take xanax for a while and you won´t be thinking of unicorns but very dark things, and the meth and morphine are obvious stereotypes too. The cocaine one is a joke too. Come on… “pretty” drawings but faker n poseur
I agree with x0x0, Salvia the Devine is one smoke that you deff need a sitter and when done properly is done in the dark. One can not even hold himself upright with Salvia AND the user manual should be downloaded before attempting to do it, Its not for the FAINTHEARTED either. It makes shrooms look like a Sunday walk in the Park. But the others look entirely plausible and some actually spot on.
jesus..
It seems he would probably produce fascinating art to look at whether he took substances into his dome or not.. I think one must be looking/frantic for new material to appeal to such a shallow audience. Just an opinion. He who clears his dome of all toxins can only produce the finest of works..
scary.
to me, salvia portrait apart, it all seems fake. sry, its just an opinion. Plus he´s not using the same technique and materials on each portrait so the work lacks cohesiveness. I`ve had addiction problems and his dumb drawing “while on coke” it´s looks totally made up. unless he´s a kid of some sorts coke will do a lot of harm in many ways but has no effect on the part of the brain that draws. Plus its full of sterotypes of fright and “speed” and nonsense. And again, seems to come more from the image ppl make out of this drugs or imagine how they work than the real subjective effect they create: so he took xanax for how much time? 2 days? so everything was cool and happy? Xanax is a dark chemical not to be used recreatively unless u want to get crazy real quick. And no unicorns there but very nasty side-effects. IMHO the idea could be interesting but the excecution makes no sense he should use always the same materials. And from a neurochemistry viewpoint some of those chemicals have little or not very visible impact on your drawing abilities -cocaine is one example unless your really wasted or took way too much or are crashing then you will draw normal, as it has no effect on the drawing centers of the brain. Come on its a fake. It´s a disgrace that a person that surely has some ability does this idiot stuff stuffing on the same bag psychedelics, hard drugs and benzos. ITS OBVIOUS he´s faking it and as a work of art it lacks continuity. So why they day he did coke he used pencil and draw numbers, speed and other idiotic stuff that does nothing to depict the subjective effect of that drug on a brain? Ok its cool i guess he may be a not so bright person and either he wears unicorn t-shirts or hes not experienced the dark side of benzos. And lastly mixing hard and soft drugs is a mistake, and I don´t see the big deal about something presented as “an experiment” but lacks any experimental protocol (be it: always use a red pen). And he´s prolly making money out of it posing as a drug tester “artist”. he draws nice, good for him. stick to drawing and maybe morphine that one is imho really interesting. But none of them show any subjective effect of chemicals on the brain and precisely on the brain areas that enable ppl to draw, that would be interesting
this is ridiculous. As a pharmacist, the blatant use of drugs for recreational purposes is absolutely crazy to me. The human body does not deserve to go through such side effects and possible damage so that he can make a different self portrait every time.
It may have been a smart idea to him at the time, but with all due respect sir, i cannot encourage this and i hope you get some help and find “safer” ways to explore your inner creativity.
If you’d go to his website and browse through all his portraits, you’d quickly find out that all his works are fucked up.
Even his exhibitions are incredibly insane.
I don’t even know how I finished up here, but I assumed this submit was good. I do not realize who you are but certainly you’re going to a well-known blogger should you are not already. Cheers!
Can we see one of his self portraits that was done while he was sober?
Someone had to do it ! Absinth ! no wonder Marilyn Manson loves the stuff – looks like something out of his mind.It’s mushrooms and Ritilin for me though. Brilliant
good luck trying to draw anything while huffing gas, he definitely didnt drew this while under influence
Really interesting project. Great way to help non-drug takers understand the experience of being on drugs. Art is much more descriptive than words in this instance. He also has a series of self-portraits portraying his experience of pain and anxiety – they can be seen on his website.