Alzhiemer's artist experiment WLLIAM UTERMOLEN

(1)Year 1

While looking into mental health issues and art, I heard of  an artist called William Utermolen who drew roughly one self portrait every year for approximately eight years, to show the decline in his health and mental state while having Alzheimer's.  His work, although simple is incredibly sad and just shows how much can be conveyed through the visual arts. I plan to experiment by doing a series of drawings every day for a week, showing a visual 

(1) year 2

(1) year 3

representation of the mental decline sufferers have. Its an experiment into getting into the mind-set in a way, and I plan to draw a face, a self-portrait, and each day part of the face vanishes; to represent how sufferers lose what makes them them. As they lose their grip on reality. So by the end of the week I hope to have six or seven drawings as a  series.  But first, a bit of a look into Alzheimer's and this artist.




(1)William Utermolen was diagnosed with this horrible disease in 1995 - He died in 2007. He decided to do the self portraits to show how his mind decayed over the years.(1) His portraits, I think personally get quite scary near the end.

(1) year 4

(1)"YOU CAN SEE HIS MIND SLIP AWAY BIT BY BIT"

 (2)As he got worse and was heading down the road towards dementia, he was admitted to a nursing home, where he made the portraits. He did it to try to make himself and others understand the disease more and show how his mind changed what he looked like or thought like.

(1) year 5

(2) As he deteriorated, his work got less 3D and less relatable or recognisable. His work started to have  nightmarish quality to them. He lost all sense of scale and depth

(1)year 6

(2)"I say he died in 2000, because he died when he couldn’t draw any more. He actually died in 2007, but it wasn’t him by then."

(2)He used oils and watercolours. As he got worse his work became less linear and more thickly applied and more expressionist.

(1) year 7

(3)He even had a psychoanalyst look at his work and he concluded 
that the paintings showed great shame and sadness.


References:

(1)http://www.boredpanda.com/alzheimers-disease-self-portrait-paintings-william-utermohlen
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(2)http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/william-utermohlen-alzheimers-self-portraits

(3)http://www.odditycentral.com/art/alzheimer-suffering-artist-drew-his-self-portrait-for-five-years-until-he-forgot-how-to-draw.html

Here is my idea for the piece on Alzheimer's