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Drugged Self-Portraits — Through an Illicit Lens Bryan Lewis Saunders finds Fear and Loathing

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Sometimes the suffering we go through for the sake of Art is completely self-induced.

Take Bryan Lewis Saunders, for example. The D.C.-based artist recently released a series of self-portraits each drawn through the lens of a different drug. The series — appropriately titled “Drugs” — includes 48 self portraits composed while Saunders was on everything from Crystalmeth and cocaine to DMT and Bath Salts. The experiment — which had Saunders taking a different drug everyday — left him “lethargic” and with “mild brain damage.” [Browse through a sample of Saunders’s work in the gallery above.]

And I thought leaning out of a helicopter was sort of on the edge.

Incredibly, Saunders claims that the experiment is on-going and that he plans to allow more time in between each session.

Sounds like a smart idea.

While this kind of over-the-edge mining for creativity may pay off for the painter, I have serious doubts that it could produce the same results for the photographer. Sadly (or fortunately, depending on how you factor mild brain damage into your risk/reward equation) the camera lens tends to act as a pretty strong filter for mind altering substances.

Or so I’ve been told.

Let it go on record that I am not advocating any of you to go out and repeat this journey for the sake of Photography. [But if you do, please send along the results.]

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31 replies on:
Drugged Self-Portraits — Through an Illicit Lens Bryan Lewis Saunders finds Fear and Loathing

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  1. bradbell.tv says:
    October 1, 2012 at 11:05 am

    I see a correlation between drugs and warm and cool colours. A lot of them are very warm. Ambien is bathed in warm light. Cocaine is cool colourlessness. Bath salts too.

    If you had to choose a state-of-being on the basis of these portraits, which would it be?
    (smoorhsum)

  2. Robert Linthicum says:
    October 1, 2012 at 10:32 am

    Some of these are beautiful.

    Was one of these made under the influence of alcohol?

  3. Embarrassed says:
    October 1, 2012 at 10:30 am

    I’m embarrassed by this post. As someone we look up to in the creative world why would you promote something so abhorrent as this on your blog?! Your advocating and even glamorizing the use of dangerous, addictive, and deadly drugs for creative purposes? Meth is not something people use recreationally. It kills people and destroys lives. And bath salts?! Do you not even watch the news?! I’m sorry, after this I cannot possibly follow you any more and I’m embarrassed to have looked up to you as a creative influence.

    1. Robert Linthicum says:
      October 1, 2012 at 10:35 am

      Relax.

      The artist did the work; Chase is just passing it along as something interesting to share. I do not read anywhere here that either Chase or the artist are promoting this as a Good Idea.

      I don’t see Tarantino as promoting violence. He just made it an art form.

    2. Anon says:
      October 4, 2012 at 10:54 am

      Have to agree with you here. Chase this is just sad that this is all you found to post.
      I’m sorry for you man. Guess you’re scrounging now.

  4. Sebastjan Vodusek says:
    October 1, 2012 at 9:44 am

    Crazy! Number 8 is probably the Bath Salts lol.
    I would totally wreck my camera if I did that with photography.

  5. coloursmarie says:
    October 1, 2012 at 9:39 am

    Slide 8 is painful. Beautiful work. I wonder the significance of the reappearing egg.

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