Why I paint
I paint because I am a high-functioning autistic. As an infant, my first memories, (hmm, yes, I do in fact remember that far back), are of sound, silence and color. Sound was heard on my skin, not through my ears and then my brain. At the same time, because in my head was the world of silence and color, almost all sounds were excruciating. As a child, adolescent and adult high-functioning autistic my primary negative trigger has always been audial; it is easy to see why. This odd dislocation later grew to become a disciplined and distinct, eventually visionary, survival technique. Easily understood to be a kind of ”disembodiment”, this positive transformation means that I manage life today with the sensation that my heart is completely exposed on the noisy screeching surface of my body, on my skin.
The primary remedy for my particular consciousness (read: autism) has always been living pure sentient color, and the sentient and non-sentient (i.e. silicate) forms and mass that radiate color. The only method for managing the gift and the curse of my consciousness has been color. My medicine is pure perceived color, color that breathes life, which is light.There is the pure science of perception, and truth of discovery in color. After all, we do not live in a black and white universe, do we? Color for me remains the ultimate glory of the gift of life, and of death. I live seeing the color of life, and the draining away of all color as death claims complete rest.
As an autistic child with virtually no communicative skills, my world was assembled within because I was unable to situate my body in the world. To be clear, I have always acutely perceived reality around me, but I sense my body to be in orbit, like a plane forever seeking a runway to land. In that perpetual flight, the outside world became the carrier of the medicine I needed to retain physical form, and that medicine was color, and color perceived in mass and form. From there, color in nature, science, and spirit became my cosmology, and my gift to give.
And so for my life-time all this remains true. Today the different kinds of work I do are being developed into projects that the public can utilize as healing tools to enhance their own lives and vision for the future. The gift of being an HFA is the productivity that sets me apart from my peers, is that my goal remains that of freeing and unifying humanity. Because we are all, as a species, impatient, the slow course of our development stops our perception of our growth. Upon the contemplation and recollection of what is newly felt when viewing my art, my work hopes to reveal the actual sensation of transformation within the heart, the mind and the soul.
This is why I am a creator of many projects that synthesize art, science, and spirit. I draw, paint and sculpt, prodigiously. It is entirely because of the gift of high-functioning autism. This production is how I survive my perceived torpor of ordinary society and particularly, the newness of the American culture. It is why my interface with that world that moves much too slowly is usually very painful. It also speaks to the reason why my work lacks the recognition that it deserves. In European cultures where the development of art is more deeply instilled in the educational systems, passed down through generations – my work was admired, understood, and utilized. I live and work, however, in the United States where my work greatly lacks the recognition it deserves, and thus I feel has not yet fulfilled its purpose.
I am often told that I am 10 to 20 years ahead of my time, and that the world needs the projects and work I have developed over those past 20 years. This encouragement means that a readiness must exist for my work as the public finally catches up. My projects are developed and ready to be brought to the public. However the sheer necessity to paint as a means of survival often impedes my ability to effectively market and sell my work. I paint because I must to survive. As a result I have over 4,000 paintings & drawings available for purchase.
