painting without sight

[Bongo]

Blind from birth.

Painting without sight

Dear Artist, Recently there has been a bit of excitement around the painter Esref Armagan. The 51-year-old native of Istanbul, Turkey, has been blind from birth. Researchers at Boston University an...

painterskeys.com

 

[Artyczar]

There are many sight-impaired and blind artists out there doing incredible things! I know a few that I've met through the National Arts and Disability Center.

 

[Donna T]

Thanks for this, Bongo. I happened to do a few blind contour drawings today before I watched this and they were embarrassingly bad. The way this man draws and paints so well without the aid of sight is amazing.

 

[Bongo]

He is truly amazing. BUT nothing he does is "second sight" or "tapping into some transcendental power" etc. NOR does he make that claim.

His ability comes from his touch memory, and from instruction, and then practice practice practice. In other words hard work.\
If you look at his paintings it's patently obvious that he would have to have instruction to do them. Nothing wrong with that, takes nothing away from him. But I've read claims about his ability to see in perspective, etc. No, he was taught that an object appears smaller when it's further away.

 

[Desforges]

Why not? That’s great.

 

[Bongo]

They put out three identical cups on a table, one close to him, one mid distance, and one he can just barely reach He feels all three of them then draws the cups in perspective i.e. the ones further away smaller. He did not have some special power to see perspective - he can't see anything. He felt three cups at different distances and drew them following the rules he was taught. That's great, that's fantastic, But he's not drawing what he "sees", he's drawing what he feels and then applying rules he's been taught.. That takes nothing away from him, it's amazing he can do that -- but some people are suggesting/saying it's some kind of "second sight" or "transcendental power".

 

[laika]

"According to the results of the brain scan, areas of his visual cortex light up as if he was seeing. This also suggests that the seeing of both sighted and unsighted persons is somewhat a matter of belief."

(Bolding mine) That's interesting.