Rarely do we have the opportunity to truly get in someone else's head — to see the world the way they see it. Perhaps this is why we struggle to understand or empathize with people we deem to be 'different.' And this can explain much of the stigma surrounding mental illness. But Imgurian ThePsychoticArtist is giving us a unique opportunity to view the world through the eyes of someone with schizophrenia. The seventeen-year-old artist draws and expands upon her hallucinations and posts them online. "I draw to make people happy," she said. Mission accomplished.
Her artwork is stunning and colorful.
"This is Birdie, she sings to me," she wrote.
Some of the hallucinations are of concrete objects, like this jellyfish.
An elephant at the San Diego Zoo looked a little more colorful to her.
And a glance in the mirror looked like this:
"I looked in the mirror and my eyes did this thing. I painted it," she said.
Some of the hallucinations are more abstract.
"I see a lot of swirls and stars and circles," she wrote.
She saw an alien with an alien flag.
That alien has some excellent blue hair
The scope of her art goes beyond hallucinations. She does a pretty impressive "guy from Hercules with the blue horns."
While we can't fully understand any individual's experience with mental illness, seeing this stunning artwork is pretty enlightening. Not to mention her work is incredible. Any chance we can turn some of these into tattoos?
