Allegorical Paintings
From around 1983 onwards Bryan Charnley's work began to explore ways of representing his experience of the world. In many ways this is the primary function of the artist, to find a way of making the personal insight into a universal image. Bryan used a visual language where imagery is employed to describe feelings allowing multi -layered levels of meaning to develop as in poetry. The images are accessible, coherent and evocative with a high degree of organisation evident in the finished work. It was important to Bryan Charnley that he was understood because while schizophrenia is outside of normal experience the sufferer is in no way insulated from feeling. In fact there seems to be an acute sensivity: "Lovers and madmen have such seethingbrains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact." (Shakespeare A Midsummer's Night's Dream)
Morning Flight
1983
65 x 72 cm
Oil on Canvas
Guttman MacClay Collection, Bethlem Royal Hospital
Guttman MacClay Collection, Bethlem Royal Hospital
