This exhibition is proof that special needs individuals are very talented artists who reflect their unique state in their works.
The exhibition “A Special Gift” provides the viewers an opportunity to get acquainted with the work of artists living in the State Care Homes “Harmony” and “Hearth” (Minsk).
What is this – art or not? Is it a deviation from all possible rules? A special reality? Many of these artists were very unlucky at the very beginning of their lives. A serious illness – leading to a life in a state of helplessness. Some of them did not even finish special needs school, and they sometimes don’t even know how to read and write; while for some, trouble came later, already in adulthood.
Most of the artists are not professionally educated, nor do they belong to any of the known art styles. However, all these works are unique in their spontaneity. These are individual interpretations of our real world – fragile, mysterious, simply different, evident of these talented artists’ sufferings, dreams and hopes.
These people are creators in their very heart and soul. Their works seem naive, sometimes a little strange, yet at the same time interesting and alluring. We would like to note the artists’ tendency to use bright colours, contrasting textures and shapes, often imagined or transported from everyday life to a unique artistic dimension. In their works they also frequently use graphic symbols, letters and hieroglyphs. They desire to express their own ideas, albeit in a language completely dissimilar to an ordinary, human one. To an extent it is an atavistic phenomenon – a tendency to express thoughts in ways that our remote ancestors used when were just inventing language.
The compositional solutions of colours and figures, the choice of shapes, and the absence of perspective are absolutely charming, caused by exaggerated associativity, leaving no room for gradient shades in the image conceived by these artists. Imagination has to run free to create fanciful art like this.
This art – far removed from academic, spontaneous, but in its own way harmonious proves that inspiration can be found in any conditions. The need to create, to rethink reality is the most important part of a human being, viable under any circumstances. Creativity and art live in everyone’s hearts. The artists don’t give up on happiness, love and hope. The creative process is therapeutic for them: it’s not only a mechanism of self-expression, but also of healing.
