Visual Expression Study of Patients with Schizophrenia in Dharmawangsa Mental Health Hospital

• Main Author: Kendra Disa, Gendis
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/37288
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

One of the main characteristics of schizophrenia is its extreme oddities in perceiving reality. Those particular oddities are presumably affecting the visual expression of people with schizophrenia's work of art thus generating distinctive and unusual artworks. Furthermore, the concern of visual arts and psychology has not been brought to light among researchers from both fields. There also are very limited studies of schizophrenia from the standpoint of visual arts. This research paper seeks to examine the visual expression of patients with schizophrenia as well as their means of reality perception and how it represents in their work of art. This research paper employs qualitative research method and is classified as a case study research. Simple experiment incorporating designed activities of drawing is also performed. Investigated samples of artwork are obtained from a schizophrenic woman and a schizophrenic man aged 40 to 64 years old who admitted to an inpatient rehabilitation in Dharmawangsa Mental Health Hospital. The visual expression of both subjects is analyzed by utilizing art criticism method and theory of psychoanalysis. This research discovered that the artworks of patients with schizophrenia are similiar to ones created by children. However, there are several visual aspects that display knowledge of adults. Child-like means of visualizing demonstrate how patients with schizophrenia communicate, but the visuals of adults' knowledge are about how they think. Those works of art are missing novelty from the aspect of originality. The creative process is spontaneous and intuitive. People with schizophrenia are commonly social outcasts, but their artworks apparently are still subjected to social systems. There are no significant oddities in terms of realityperceiving from their visualization of artworks.