For Immediate Release : Internationally Acclaimed Artist Moves To Cape Breton - Inspiring Journey Of Success Against Medical Odds -
Tracy Lamourie
Lamourie Media, Executive Producer and Intl Award Winning Cannes accredited Publicist - Featured : Rolling Stone, NBC TV, CBC, Huff Post & over 250 TV, radio, podcast & panel appearances
“She says fear of sudden death is what drives her, daily, to keep working.”
(Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, (Dec 10)
She moved to Cape Breton this past summer and is excited about the new life she is building there.
“We started browsing properties in June of 2023, and fell in love with this place.” She says of her new Frenchvale, Nova Scotia home. “There were over a dozen suitable backups across the province, but this one just felt right.”
The artist can frequently be seen locally, dressed, as always, in her signature colors, purple and green, accompanied by her devoted husband and caregiver, Russell Barth. Together, the two moved from the Ottawa area to build their dreams under the Nova Scotia skies.
One hardly knows where to begin telling the story of Christine Lowe. The most obvious point of discussion is the unique, eye popping artwork she produces - the work that has begun to garner international attention. There’s a lot to say about how she’s rising in the art world - and any art lover will agree that her work, even without the inspirational backstory, speaks for itself and deserves the attention it’s getting.
Living with random spontaneous epileptic seizures because of a rare form of epilepsy since birth, Christine has bravely shared her struggles - a decade and a half ago a video of her having an epileptic seizure got international coverage (to date, over 6.2 million people have seen the video, not including other pages that have re-uploaded on their own well-watched pages) as part of her activism work and was even featured in Guardian UK. Interestingly, the footage of her seizure was later used in a Norwegian supernatural lesbian coming-of-age thriller, “Thelma”.
Christine lives through 25-30 seizures a month. “But they are mostly mild ones,” she says. “I have about 8 convulsive seizures per year.” When asked if she’s ever been injured while having a seizure, she responds, “Too many times to count. My nose cartilage is not attached to my skull after a fall during a psychiatric appointment. I have lost teeth, only to have the implants dislodge later from another seizure. Surprisingly, no bone fractures.”
Today she spends most of her time at home in Cape Breton with her husband, dog, and iPad, creating artwork that grabs the attention of the viewer. Although her work is not really about epilepsy, she says the fear of sudden death is what drives her, daily, to keep working. The work itself is informed by the disjointed, tenuous, and fragmentary relationship that she has with reality. “I suppose ‘eclectic’ is my oeuvre…” she says with a smile.
Born in Perth Ontario and raised in nearby Almonte, Lowe studied Graphic Design at Algonquin College, and has done a variety of jobs over the years including custom framing and graphic darkroom work for a newspaper. Born in 1969, her childhood was steeped in the Warhol, Yellow Submarine, and Peter Max-inspired magazine illustrations, TV commercials and cartoons that were ubiquitous in North American pop culture during the 70s. Later, she was influenced by Lichtenstein, Dali, Warhol, O’Keefe, and art nouveau. Comic books, M?bius, Patrick Nagel, 70s anime, graphic novels, and more recent animated movies and shows like Scanner Darkly, Archer, and Black Dynamite have been a big influence on her work.
She has, of late, developed a new aesthetic vocabulary and has been producing a lot of work since 2018. Combining influences from the above-mentioned painters and illustrators with a sort of birthday cake/stained glass feeling, she explores nostalgia, memory, and experience through the prism of epilepsy. Intended to produce works that depict a quasi-reality that stimulates, in the viewer, an indistinct sense of whimsy and nostalgia, she uses expansive areas of flat colour to create a vague kind of abstraction, but the heavy outliner allows the image depicted to impose itself onto the canvas.
By working with materials usually associated with crafts - like the cerne relief outliner, metal leaf, glitter and metallic paints - it is also her intention to elevate these humble materials to a higher level. Her works are paintings, but also art ‘objects’.
The paintings, especially in person, are imposing. Rendered on canvas with mainly acrylic paint, certain aspects of the image are outlined with the Cerne Relief acrylic, leaving a raised, shiny, wavering line that makes the image shimmer and twitch. Combined with other mediums like glitter, glitter-infused craft paints, and silver leaf, the works drift away from standard “painting” and into “object d’art” territory.
“I see the world like everyone else, but figuratively speaking, this is how it all looks to me.” She explains. “This is how the world feels to me. Cartoonish. Shimmering. Weird. Imposing. Detached. If the works are unsettling, that is by design. I could have made the raised lines less wiggly and blobby, but that, I feel, is what makes you know a human did it. I did some tests using very sharp lines, as sharp as one can with that medium, and the images didn’t pop like I wanted.”
But there is even more to this fascinating artist than the work she does.
The now acclaimed artist first came to public attention for her activist work in Canada - a circumstance directly related to her medical condition. Christine and her husband Russell Barth emerged on the public activism scene in 2003, with TV appearances, radio interviews, published letters, and quotes in news articles. That was also the year they published the world’s first children’s book about medical marijuana (Mommy’s Funny Medicine), and caught one of Christine’s violent convulsive seizures on video. Since Canada legalized coast to coast, Christine Lowe has, since then, been concentrating primarily on her art - to the benefit of art lovers in Canada and around the world.
Since moving to Cape Breton, Christine and Russell have also been laying the groundwork - both literally and figuratively - for an epic farming operation. They are planning a 1500 sq ft greenhouse filled with hydroponic gear to grow vegetables for themselves and the public - with a chicken enclosure.
But how does a woman with epilepsy do all this?
“I delegate.” She says, laughing.
“I know what I can and can’t do. I can work on my art and I can think about my future, and decide what I want to do. But my memory is fragmenting, and I have anywhere from 16-25 seizures of various magnitudes per month, which is disorienting. I need 24/7 supervision because of how random and spontaneous they are. I know what I want to do with my art and my life, but can’t remember little short term things, or movies I have seen recently. I have lost my sense of direction and have no inner clock.”
Her husband Russell provides the support she needs.
VIEW HER INCREDIBLE WORK AT :
and
领英推荐
https://www.TwitchyDesign.ca (where ten of her psychedelic designs can be made available on a variety of clothes, accessories, and decor items.)
IN THE NEWS :
Artist Weekly : Christine Lowe Art - A Journey From Activism To Artistry
Authority Magazine : Visual Artist, Activist and Author Christine Lowe - Second Chapters - How I Reinvented Myself
The Guardian UK Why we posted epilepsy film to YouTube
Christine Lowe Having An Epileptic Seizure :
Social Impact Heroes - Artist Christine Lowe https://socialimpactheroes.com/visual-artist-activist-and-author-christine-lowe-second-chapters-how-i-reinvented-myself-in-the/
PACE Radio Interview
ON SOCIALS :
Christine is available for media interviews.
Media contact :
Tracy Lamourie
Founder, Managing Director, Senior Publicist
LAMOURIE MEDIA
"Global Award Winning PR - Toronto, Hollywood, the EU & Beyond"
Absolutely love how you're using art to ignite conversations around epilepsy and disabilities. Remember, Vincent Van Gogh once said - I dream my painting and I paint my dream. Keep creating, your work is incredibly powerful and speaks volumes! ???