Nominated by
Tracy Lamourie
December 10, 2023
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.