Erik Olson: Hēmikrāníā

Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is thrilled to present Calgary based artist Erik Olson's first exhibition in Montreal entitled Hēmikrāníā.

This new collection of paintings on canvas and carved wood extends Erik Olson’s ongoing portraiture practice. Each piece captures the essence of friends and close acquaintances, distilling individuality through an intimate understanding of their behaviour and energy. Simultaneously, these personal portraits delve into the phenomenon of migraine aura.

“…flashes of purple or black colours before the sight, or all mixed, to exhibit the appearance of a rainbow expanded in the heavens.” – Aretaeus, (2nd century AD) describing the migraine aura.

Migraine, one of the most prevalent neurological disorders, has been documented medically since the time of Hippocrates over 2000 years ago. The word migraine is from the Greek Hēmikrāníā, 'pain in half of the head.' Historical figures such as Julius Caesar, St. Paul, Thomas Jefferson, Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud have all described their experiences with migraines. Defined as an episodic headache with features such as sensitivity to light, sound, and movement, migraines are often misdiagnosed due to the complex array of effects described by neurologist Oliver Sacks as a "constellation of symptoms.”[1]

As someone who experiences classical migraines, Olson is part of a small percentage of migraineurs who encounter visual auras, known in medical terms as a scintillating scotoma. This visual phenomenon begins as a tiny flicker of visual disorder at the focal point. It grows into a fragmentary, curving, flashing, and pulsating kaleidoscopic light disturbance, affecting half the visual field. This visual experience lasts about 20 minutes before regular vision returns. 

Olson’s discovery of Hubert Airy's 1870 drawings was revelatory. These innovative visualizations of migraine aura remain some of the most accurate representations today. The structured and rhythmic nature of the auras, corroborated by millions of migraine patients, offers a glimpse into an otherwise invisible experience. Unlike random visual disturbances, migraine auras are geometric and recognizable yet cannot be fully understood through the anatomy of the eye. They originate like a thunderstorm traversing the brain. Despite recent technological advancements, it remains impossible to visualize migraine auras using functional MRI or other brain scanning technologies.

“The visual migraine aura is a dramatic phenomenon, and of great neurological interest. It is generated by the visual areas of the brain by mechanisms that are still not completely understood. From the patient’s point of view, especially on first experiencing it, it can be surprising, confusing, and cause concern about serious medical causes. Nevertheless, the migraine aura is generally harmless, and transient.” – Dr. Werner J. Becker MD, 2023

In this exhibition, four sculptures represent the four stages of a migraine:

1. The luminous, mysterious quality of the migraine aura reminiscent of moonlight and the aurora borealis.

2. The extreme, often debilitating pain of a migraine.

3. The temporary burnout of the brain and the truncation of the body during a migraine.

4. The relief of the migraine lifting is akin to grasping a glass of water and drinking it in a lucid dream.

In this exhibition, Olson’s exploration of migraine auras aligns with a broader historical context of art depicting migraines, particularly harking back to the Migraine Art Competitions of the 1980s. Organized by the British Migraine Association, these competitions were held in the UK. They gathered an eclectic collection of paintings, drawings, and other visual artworks that vividly represented the experiences of migraine sufferers. Artists of varying skill levels used abstract, geometric, illustrative, scientific, symbolic, and surreal styles as mediums to transcribe their experiences onto a 2D surface. Thus, the collection now provides an invaluable visual record of the structured and rhythmic disturbances characteristic of migraine auras.[2]

Olson’s unique approach of blending personal portraiture with these visual phenomena offers a new dimension within this tradition, breaking into the three-dimensional space. His work not only provides an intimate portrayal of his close friends and acquaintances but also delves into the intricate, painful, and often misunderstood experience of migraine auras. His painterly style, a subtle blend of gestural brushstrokes, soft shifts in tone and hue, and bold geometric interventions, conveys a juxtaposition of the visible and the visceral. Through keen observation of his subjects’ likeness, mannerisms, energy, and personhood, his work synthesizes individual identity and universal human experiences, marking a significant addition to the artistic representation of migraines.

“Our view of Nature has changed as we recognize chaotic and self-organizing processes in natural systems, reflecting the evolution of the universe. Migraine is enthralling for it shows us, in a hallucinatory display, not just the secrets of neuronal organization, but the creative heart of Nature itself." - Oliver Sacks, Migraine

[1] Sacks, Oliver. 1970. Migraine. Revised and Expanded Edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. Originally published in 1970, subsequently revised in 1985 and 1992.

[2] "The Migraine Art Competition Collection," Wellcome Collection, accessed June 18, 2024, https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/Wn4WGhYAACIAxg4i

Biography

Olson holds a bachelor from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2007). In 2014/2015, he attended the critically acclaimed Kunstakademie Düsseldorf as a guest student of internationally renowned artist/professor Peter Doig. In fall 2018, Olson's work was featured in Cosmos, an exhibition organized by Calgary's Glenbow Museum, Olson has been the subject of solo exhibitions in Canada and internationally, in Europe and the U.S. (Luis de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, 2023, 2020; BravinLee Programs, New York, 2019). His work is part of the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton. Olson currently lives and works in Calgary.

Bibliography

Becker, Werner J., MD. 2023. FRCPC (Neurology), Professor Emeritus, University of Calgary.

Ramage-Morin, Pamela L., and Heather Gilmour. 2014. “Prevalence of Migraine in the Canadian Household Population.” Health Reports 25, no. 6 (June): 10-16. Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 82-003-X.

Sacco, Simona. 2022. “Migraine: A Review on Its History, Global Epidemiology, Risk Factors, and Comorbidities.” Frontiers in Neurology 12 (February): Article 800605. University of L’Aquila, Italy. https://www.frontiersin.org.

Sacks, Oliver. 1970. Migraine. Revised and Expanded Edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. Originally published in 1970, subsequently revised in 1985 and 1992.