Mental Health Perceptions from Artwork
Keywords:
aesthetics, mental health, artwork
Abstract
The relationship between artwork and mental health has been the subject of various research endeavours. Whilst artwork has been long used as a means of emotional expression, it is also a method of raising mental health awareness. In this study, an art collection was presented to depict the challenges faced by many individuals living with a mental illness. Through a series of open-ended questions, twenty-nine participants were requested to give a title to each piece and to describe the perceived message and emotions related to each painting. The thematic analysis process of the participants’ descriptions led to the identification of three themes, namely those of Darkness, Solitude and Recovery. Whilst congruence was often observed between the participants themselves and between the viewers and the artist, discrepancies were also noted. Artwork can be an important medium in addressing stigma and in guiding reflections on mental health topics.
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Andreou, E., & Bonoti, F. (2010). Children’s Bullying Experiences Expressed Through Drawings and Self-Reports. School Psychology International, 31(2), 164-177. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034309352421
Arn, J. (2019). How Goya’s “Third of May” Forever Changed the Way We Look at War. Retrieved from https://www.artsy.net/series/stories-10-art-historys-iconic-works/artsy-editorial-goyas-third-may-forever-changed-way-war
Barthes, R. (1980). Camera Lucida. Hill and Wang.
Beams, S. (2019). The Scream: A Deeper Analysis of Edvard Munch’s Anxiety-Wrought Piece. Retrieved from https://medium.com/everything-art/the-scream-a-deeper-analysis-of-edvard-munchs-anxiety-wrought-piece-c36d9bbbb4cd
Charney, N. (2016). How the Skull Is an Ally in Art. Retrieved from https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/how-the-skull-is-an-ally-in-art/
Cherry, K. (2021). The Color Psychology of White. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-white-2795822
De Melo, C., & Gratch, J. (2010). Evolving expression of emotions through color in virtual humans using genetic algorithms. Paper presented at the 1st International Conference on Computational Creativity, ICCC-X.
Elliot, A. (2015). Color and psychological functioning: a review of theoretical and empirical work. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 368. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00368
Gail, S. (2017). To remove the stigma of mental illness, we need to accept how complex—and sometimes beautiful—it is. Retrieved from https://qz.com/author/drgailsaltz/
Gatti, E., Calzolari, E., Maggioni, E., & Obrist, M. (2018). Emotional ratings and skin conductance response to visual, auditory and haptic stimuli. Scientific Data, 5(180120). https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.120
Gbehounou, S., Lecellier, F., Fernandez-Maloigne, C., & Cnrs, U. (2012). Extraction of emotional impact in colour images. Paper presented at the 6th European Conference on Colour in Graphics, Imaging and Vision,
Gerge, A., Pederson, I., Gattino, G., & Warja, M. (2020). The body in the mind – Assessing the phenomenal self through paintings created by gynaecological cancer survivors. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2020.101691
Goldstein, J. L. (2020). The Spanish 1918 Flu and the COVID-19 Disease: The Art of Remembering and Foreshadowing Pandemics. Cell, 183(2), 285-289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.09.030
Groman, J. (2019). The Bully’s Face: Using Art to Understand Bullying in Gifted Children. Gifted Child Today, 42(1), 12-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1076217518804852
Hershfield, H. E., Goldstein, D. G., Sharpe, W. F., Fox, J., Yeykelis, L., Carstensen, L. L., & Bailenson, J. N. (2011). Increasing Saving Behavior Through Age-Progressed Renderings of the Future Self. Journal of Marketing Research, 48, S23-S37. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.48.SPL.S23
Hodges, S. (2015). How to Look at Art. Tate.
Jacquette, D. (2014). Art, Expression, Perception and Intentionality. Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 1(1), 63-90. https://doi.org/10.2752/20539339XX14005942183973
Katzin, M. (2016). Exploring Personal Symbolism and Visual Metaphors through Artistic Inquiry (MA).
Kingslan, A., & Gibilisco, M. (2011). History and Meaning of Objects in Painting. Retrieved from https://kingslan.com/newsletters/Symbols_in_Art.pdf
Kirkham, J., Smith, J., & Havsteen-Franklin, D. (2015). Painting pain: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of representations of living with chronic pain. Health Psychology, 34(4), 398-406. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000139
Leder, H., Gerger, G., Dressler, S., & Schabmann, A. (2012). How art is appreciated. Psychology of Aesthetics, 6(1), 2-10. https://https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026396
Lewis, M. (2018). 10 ways to convey emotion in your artwork. Retrieved from https://www.creativebloq.com/features/10-ways-to-convey-emotion-in-your-artwork
Markey, P. S., Jakesch, M., & Leder, H. (2019). Art looks different – Semantic and syntactic processing of paintings and associated neurophysiological brain responses. Brain and Cognition, 134, 58-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2019.05.008
Paasschen, J., Bacci, F., & Mlecer, D. (2015). The Influence of Art Expertise and Training on Emotion and Preference Ratings for Representational and Abstract Artworks. Plos One, 10(8), e0134241. https://https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134241
Pelowski, M., Forster, M., & Tinio, P. (2017). Beyond the Lab: An Examination of Key Factors Influencing Interaction with ‘Real’ and Museum-based Art. Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts, 11(3). https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000141
Pope, D., Butler, H., & Qualter, P. (2012). Emotional Understanding and Color-Emotion Associations in Children Aged 7-8 Years. Child Development Research, https://https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/975670
Pos, O., & Green-Armytage, P. (2007). Facial expressions, colours and basic emotions. Journal of the International Colour Association, 1, 1-20.
Rothenberg, A. (2015). Creativity and Mental Illness. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creative-explorations/201503/creativity-and-mental-illness
Rustin, T. (2008). Using artwork to understand the experience of mental illness: Mainstream artists and Outsider artists. Psychosocial Medicine, 5. Retrieved from https://PMCID:PMC2736519
Sahiti, G. (2017). Mentally ill artists and their impact on the world. Retrieved from https://mccsoapbox.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/mentally-ill-artists-and-their-impact-on-the-world/
Sammut, A., & Calleja, A. (2019). Living with mental illness. Sammut & Calleja.
Singh, R., & Ladsaria, S. (2017). Reading 'Studium' and 'Punctum' in Steve Mccurry and Raghu Rai's photography. Trames, 21(71/66), 33-50. https://doi.org/10.3176/tr.2017.1.03
Smart, A. (2011). Damien Hirst and Gabriel Orozco, two conceptual artists, create two very different skulls. Retrieved from https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/how-the-skull-is-an-ally-in-art/
Sutton, T., & Altarriba, J. (2016). Color associations to emotion and emotion-laden words: A collection of norms for stimulus construction and selection. Behaviour Research Methods, 48, 686-728. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0598-8
Taylor, M., Stoltz, D., & McDonnell, T. (2019). Binding significance to form: Cultural objects, neural binding, and cultural change. Poetics, 73, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.01.005
Published
2021-12-23
How to Cite
Sammut, A., Grech, P., Galea, M., Mangion, M., & Scerri, J. (2021, December 23). Mental Health Perceptions from Artwork. Humanities and Social Science Research, 4(4), p42. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.30560/hssr.v4n4p42
Issue
Section
Articles
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Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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