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Paintings: Creighton Michael, January 20, 2006

Creighton Michael's first exhibition in Europe will open January 20, 2006, at Galerie Egelund in Copenhagen. The exhibition will contain many migraine aura works including some new ones. According to Creighton Michael, "My work is developed from an exploration of the process, structure and product of drawing. I created a visual language that is applicable to either two or three-dimensional formats and preserves the immediacy and intimacy of drawing. The influence of natural patterns and their relationship to drawing formed the basis for my painting in 1995. Visually inspired by Islamic calligraphy with its relationship of mark to pattern, my paintings became atmospheres constructed from multiple layers of marking activity. The illusion of space, often punctuated by a single gesture or a series of gestures, is produced by the repetition and alteration of hued marks. Employing a loose and direct drawing process, the BEBOP series focuses on rhythmic pattern formations and the textured space produced as the consequence of a varied marking vocabulary. In the series SQUIGGLE and VEER, these marks create spatial illusion yet deny that illusion by making the viewer aware of the painting process. The shifting ambiguity between the material and the intangible is repeated in the FIELD series as the fragile balance existing between the texture on the surface and spatial illusion residing optically in the surface plane. The experience of ocular migraines and the optic effects it has on spatial perception were the initial motivation for the FIELD series. Painted on convex panels, the FIELD layer diverse marks in chromatic transparent planes to create a dimensional envelope. Through the calligraphic segments or strokes that form my paintings, I continue to explore the vibrant nature of patterns from a place where drawing and writing intersect."

ACME Open Studios 2005, November 19-20, 2005

Justin Bailey and J.J.Ignatius Brennan are among the exhibiting artists at ACME Open Studios 2005, 44 Copperfield Road, Bow, London E3 4RR (open Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th November 12 to 5 pm). Further artists include a mixture of both well established and new names. These studios are in a 1920s warehouse built alongside Regent's Canal and are part of ACME Studios, a London-based charity that supports fine art practice by providing artists with low cost studio and living space. ACME was formed by artists in 1972 and is the largest organisation of its kind in the UK. It has helped more than 4000 artists with this fundamental means of support.

Life and Migraine, October 26, 2005

By Edmund and Daniel Messina

The documentary Life and Migraine is about the lives of 13 people with a myriad of dramatic and engaging stories to tell. They relate their frustrations, disappointments and triumphs in dealing with this misunderstood and often misdiagnosed disorder. The stories these people tell are striking not only in their differences, but also in their surprising similarities. In addition to the interviews, Life and Migraine looks into the life of a fictional woman who experiences the difficulties of those who have severe headaches. The fictional story is interwoven throughout the documentary and provides a framework from which to present the interviews. As they reflect on their years of seeking relief and understanding, many important realizations are made on-screen as they begin to piece together their narrative. One hopes that hearing their stories will encourage understanding and empathy from others while empowering headache patients to demand the correct treatment. [ more]

Celebrities and migraine, July 3, 2005

By Ian Hodder

Famous names give a public face to the migraine condition, writes Ian Hodder, journalist in New York City, in a Special for the MSNBC website. Rock 'n' roll and standup comedy are the last things a migraine sufferer wants when an episode strikes. But even when you seek relief by lying down in a dark, quiet place that's blissfully away from other people, Elvis Presley, Whoopi Goldberg and other celebrity migraineurs are always there, at least in spirit. [more]

Now that was a real headache, January 3, 2005

By Gordon Macfarlane

A sympathetic account of a female migraine sufferer's post-New-Year's-party "really bad migraine" by columnist Gordon Macfarlane from CNews, CANOE - Your Internet Network. "As one whose headaches are largely limited to hangovers I cannot fathom what a sickening event a two-day migraine must be. The aura itself sounds like a prolonged version of the few seconds after crotching yourself on your bike, when you're thinking 'this is gonna hurt.' The following mini 'Hiroshima' in your cerebrum is often accompanied by stomach-burning nausea, room-spinning dizziness and absolute indifference as to whether you live or die." [more]

Aversion to contemporary art, December 15, 2004

By Debbie Ayles and Arnold Wilkins

A Sciart project that aims to explore the creative process in non-representational art, investigating why some 'art' in the general sense can affect people - art that 'catches the eye and hits the head'. The project is a collaboration between the artist , who's paintings are inspired by her own migraine experiences, and the scientist Arnold Wilkins at the University of Essex.

Migraine and creativity, November 25, 2004

By Anton van Amerongen

The Dutch biologist and writer Anton van Amerongen ("Smell, the secret seducer", coauthored with Piet Vroon, 1994) records his own creative experience of transforming the visual patterns of his visual migraine auras in his drawings of pastel and colour pencils. [more, only in Dutch]

Migraine and Inspiration, November 15, 2004

By Peter van Vugt

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass have, since their publication in 1865 and 1871, been interpreted in the most various (and curious) ways. As early as 1952 Caro W. Lippman pointed out that the author of the two Alice books might have suffered from migraine attacks, preceded or accompanied by body image disturbances. Peter van Vugt's paper "Migraine and Inspiration - C.L. Dodgson's migraine and Lewis Carroll's literary inspiration: a neurolinguistic perspective", published in the journal Humanising Language Teaching (2004; 6 (no. 4)), argues that not only the author's body image disturbances served as a source of inspiration, but that also the visual and auditory illusions, false perceptions and sensory distortions, which the author may have experienced during some of his migraine attacks, were crucial in creating and describing the strangeness of Wonderland. [more]

Psychic powers that enable people to see auras around others may simply be a quirk of the brain, October 18, 2004

By Jamie Ward

Supposed psychic powers that enable people to see "auras" around others may simply be a quirk of the brain, according to Jamie Ward's study of a rare form of synaesthesia where some people see colourful "auras" around their loved ones, as reported in the October issue of the journal "Cognitive Neuropsychology" (2004; 21: 761-772). The study of this genuine, if unusual, form of synaesthesia expands our knowledge about neuropsychological symptoms that can explain the supposedly paranormal power of seeing "auras", which corresponds to a visual experience that may similarly be produced by a number of visual migraine aura symptoms such as pericentral fortification spectra or the corona phenomenon. [more]

Exhibition "Migraine and Art" in Skien, Norway, October 19, 2004

By Ola Kr. Gjertsen

The exhibition "Migraine and Art", dedicated to the memory of the late Derek Robinson, presents a selection of 30 paintings and drawings from the Migraine Art collection (by courtesy of the Migraine Action Association and Boehringer Ingelheim Limited) at the Hospital Telemark in Skien, Norway. The show is on display from October 19 to November 19, 2004. [more, only in Norwegian]

Migrainous complex hallucinations in 10-year-old patient, September 30, 2004

By Marcel Romanos

Considering a prevalence of three to ten percent migraine in children is not a rare disease. Visual auras as a characteristic of classical migraine are often described in literature. However, most of these are elementary geometrical hallucinations, whilst descriptions of complex hallucinations are rarely to find. A recent case report describes a 10-year-old patient who reports a complex visual hallucination during a migraine attack, demonstrating the great variety of the migraine aura.[more]

The neuropsychology of visual artistic production, September 12, 2004

By Anjan Chatterjee

What happens to visual artists with neuropsychological disturbances? This review, published in the new issue of the journal "Neuropsychologia" (2004; 42: 1568-1583), examines artistic production in individuals with a variety of neurological disorders including migraine with aura. In addition to deficits, neuropsychological syndromes may be associated with positive phenomena, which can serve to inspire artists. The review makes clear that artists with neuropsychological disturbances do not necessarily produce art of lesser quality. Rather, their art may change in content or in style, sometimes in surprising and aesthetically pleasing ways. [more]

Migraine Art: Different Ways of Seeing, August 25, 2004

By Petra Kuppers

This year's annual meeting of the Society for Literature & Science (SLS) in Durham, NC, will include a session on "Invisible Fantasies", featuring a lecture by Petra Kuppers on "Migraine Art: Different Ways of Seeing", October 15, 2004. Professor Kuppers' study explores Migraine Art from the Humanities' point of view, giving testimony of the impact of Derek Robinson's Migraine Art concept not only for medical research, but also for Cultural Studies. [more]

Raising children as atheists, July 15, 2004

By Marvin Minsky

One day, at age 17, I was walking alone at night during a snowstorm in a singularly quiet place.[more]

Of mice and migraines, June 21, 2004

By Edward Chronicle

Report of the 2004 meeting of the American Headache Society held in Vancouver.

Migraine, June 16, 2004

By Margaret Cho

Korean American comedian, actress and political activist Margaret Cho, who made television history by being the first Asian American to have a television series (All American Girl) based around her, has published an account of her experiences as a migraine sufferer in her daily weblog. [more]

Migraines Create Financial Headaches, WebMD Health, May 11, 2004

Outpatient Visits, Pharmacy Costs, Used Sick Time Lead to Higher Health Costs. [more]

Study probes visual migraine triggers, BBC News, April 10, 2004,

Some migraine sufferers develop an attack after seeing certain patterns such as stripes. A team of psychologists at Birkbeck College in London are beginning a two-year study to explore exactly what happens within the brain and the visual system when the eyes focus on these patterns and, crucially, how that culminates in an agonising headache [more].

Author: Markus Dahlem and Klaus Podoll
Last modification of this page: Thursday January 26. 2006

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