Art is often controversial — most of the time, however, the controversy stems from the subject of the art, and not how the piece is made.

Not so in the case of Bryan Lewis Saunders, a D.C.-born performance artist. The 43-year-old became famous (or infamous?) for his drug induced self-portraits, which were the result of 11 days of ingesting and inhaling various drugs. Not surprisingly, the influence of each narcotic had varying effects on the self-portraits, and each is completely unique to itself. Also not surprisingly, Saunders ended up suffering mild brain damage as a result of the project.

Interested yet?

Now, I’m not going to pretend like I “get” art…I have enough art majors for friends to know that I’ll never know what goes on inside an artist’s mind. But I am captivated by the brain, and Saunders’ project is almost like a science experiment in that respect. And though I can’t justify what it took to produce them, the portraits are utterly fascinating to me. They’re like getting a front row seat to the effects of all those drugs he took, but without having to do anything illegal or unhealthy on my part.

Click through the gallery to check out more portraits [via Huffington Post].

Also, check out this video of his project (I’d recommend muting it, though, cause the background music noise is kinda scary):

What do you Lovelies think? Is Saunders an artist or an addict? Is art ever worth brain damage?

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