Doctors may not have nailed down exactly why people present certain mental disorders, such as bipolar disorder—formerly known as manic depression—but plenty of evidence has stacked up that suggests genetic factors come into play. For local photographer Erica Bartnik, she can’t remember a time when she didn’t have racing thoughts, unbidden negative emotions, and violent images coursing through her mind.
These feelings, her inner world, are the subject of Bartnik’s current exhibition at the Cypress Gallery in Lompoc, The Duality of Reality, showing through Aug. 30.
“The best we can figure is it’s a chemical imbalance, because I was born this way,” she said. “I used to get 10 to 20 massive adrenaline rushes a day, and now I’m down to 5 or 10 a week.”
Bartnik is on medication that has lessened her symptoms significantly but doesn’t remove them completely. She sought treatment after suffering a serious heart attack at 41, she said, which left her dead for minutes.
A charge of electricity at the hands of doctors, followed by an ice bath brought her back, Bartnik explained, but the experience certainly gave her some perspective. At the time she was taking 14 units at Allan Hancock College, abusing alcohol, cigarettes, and sugary caffeinated soda, she said.
“I was only sleeping two hours a night and still getting straight A’s,” she said. “When you’re manic, you’re going to get a lot done. I felt good, but I had no idea I was about to drop dead.”
The experience encouraged her to get professional help, but she needed to help herself as well. Her penchant for photography became a healthy obsession for Bartnik, and using images to convey the reality of her world was therapeutic as well.
When Bartnik began experimenting with composite imagery—the combination of two images—and other digital effects, she was able to convey ideas that simple point-and-shoot photography could not.
“It’s a visual thing I haven’t seen tried before, and with the verbal explanations of mental health issues, it’s so overdone,” she said. “It’s my first effort at trying to convey, in images, what it’s like to suffer from bipolar disorder. I really wanted other people who suffer from it or a mental illness to connect with it and see that they aren’t alone.”
All of Bartnik’s images are untitled; she likes viewers to take their own experience to the table when interpreting them. Most are quite clear though. One shows a mirror from which Bartnik looks out, a hand raised, yet she is not in the room to cast the reflection. The theme of isolation returns in other images as well, such as one of her lying down, relaxed, on railroad tracks.
Other images convey her inner world through portraits, like a composite of Bartnik’s face and a locomotive barreling down the tracks, or flames licking her cracked visage and glowing red eyes. Some of the images illustrate dangerous states of mind that come with bipolar disorder, like suicidal thoughts, she explained. This involved precarious behavior, like laying down on railroad tracks, holding razor blades, or walking onto the street for a composite shot.
“It’s not something I recommend people with mental health issues do, it’s really something that I had to be in the right frame of mind to do without making any mistakes,” she said. “But I thought it was an integral part of the things in my head.”
Bartnik didn’t shoot these images by herself, she said. She often brought her 18-year-old daughter along, who is a supportive influence in her creative endeavors, Bartnik explained. Though Bartnik shot all the images with a remote control, her daughter was there to help in other ways, she said.
The show has also helped Bartnik in an unexpected way, she said, in that it has helped her connect more with her own mother. The exhibit gave her parent an unprecedented understanding of what it’s like to live between her ears.
“For me, it’s already succeeded far beyond anything I had hoped for because it helped me connect with my mom,” she said. “We’ve always been in contact, but I’ve never been able to explain to her so she understood, and this actually helped her understand what I’ve been trying to say for all these years.”
In the weeks since the show opened in the beginning of August, Bartnik has been present at the show while others have viewed it and has heard relayed accounts of visitors to the show and how they processed the exhibit. Locals with bipolar disorder and their families have enjoyed the show, she explained, as it allows a powerful look into the personal experience of someone with the disorder.
Others with no prior experience with bipolar disorder have enjoyed the show as well, as it is easy to immediately relate to. Images are a powerful way to communicate, especially when words can often fail to convey the complex and multilayered reality of any mind.
For Bartnik, the process hasn’t been easy, but the outcome has more than made up for it, she said.
“Doing this show was really hard for me because it made me connect with those emotions and feelings,” she said. “The fact that I’m using it to connect with other people made it a good thing for me. Using art to connect with people, it really helps a lot.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne is always learning and connecting through art. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 20-27, 2015.