Art by The "Mentally Ill"

I saw these posts on FindingOptimism.com about art by people who supposedly had "mental illness". That description probably fits 95% of us artists, so I guess it's probably just as representative as a random sampling would be!

Art by the Mentally Ill (Part 1: Famous)

Art by the Mentally Ill (Part 2: Not So Famous)

Picasso and Monet have nothing on John Cadigan, who created this superb optical bug-out monkey design:
After looking on his website, I was interested by his mission statement, "... A large part of art and spirituality are essentially mysterious. Francis Bacon said that the job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."

I feel that sentiment whole-heartedly, which is one reason I created "Da Vinci's Challenge" - to evoke a sense of mystery in an accessible and stimulating way.