The Art of Autism.

The Art of Autism.

  Savant syndrome is a phenomenon in which people with autism perform very well in a specific field.

  Among them, the Greek artist Maria Iliou, a Servant Artist who is particularly prominent in the field of art, is the founder and director of the Autism Artists Organization, working for the rights of Servant Artists.

​ Below is the official website she created.

 The Art of Autism is a nonprofit which empowers autistic people and their families through participation in the arts.

  ​If you go to the site below, you can see artists and their works who overcame their obstacles and difficulties and proudly completed their own art world. You can also post with the desire to help autistic painters and see the artists who support them and their works.

  The article below was written by an artist with an autism spectrum named Amanda Porche.

 She is a New York City based artist and photographer. In addition to autism, she also has anxiety, depression and undiagnosed OCD. 

She writes about her vivid experiences as she went through a pandemic with a disorder called autism. She says that she was able to overcome difficulties only through painting in the midst of her experiences, the fear of death, and the deprivation of everyday life.  

I soon learned that art is not about coloring inside the lines. Art is about expressing what you feel and how you perceive the world around you. 
I would often start painting or drawing with no outlines, plans or expectations. It was as if I let my feelings take the lead. If I messed up, I would just continue and turn my work into something entirely different. I used bright reds and blues to show intense emotions. I also used blacks and greys to emphasize the darkness of the current times." (by excerpt her article)

  She was at the forefront of, or at the center of, the 2020 pandemic. New York City, where she lived, was an extreme global epicenter that broadcasted in real time all over the world due to the Covid-19.  

Amanda Porche “The Death Sirens” by the website, the art is autism.

  She had to hear countless sirens. At the peak of the epidemic, a death siren could be heard on average every two to five minutes. At first she counted all the sirens. In fact, people with autism are very sensitive to external stimuli, especially sounds. From this point of view, it seems that the last pandemic situation has been a more difficult time for people suffering from autism or mental pain.

  But I admire her amazing determination and enthusiasm to overcome. She began painting for a long time, feeling the fear of countless deaths. Looking at her paintings during this period, you can see how desperate and painful she was. However, rather than sitting down in pain, she took a colored pencil and sometimes squeezing acrylic paints to express her feelings through painting.

 I think her paintings are a testament to the pain she overcame. And the art of painting never betrayed her. Through painting, she healed her complicated and devastated mind, and furthermore, she wrote books and drew pictures for those who need such healing.​