He uses a flat 2d form to see things and remembers what he saw by associating similar 2d forms from his long time memory (from previous instances).

A chess player would fail to recognise a chess board where chess pieces are place randomly. A chess player however does recognise patterns of previously studied games instantly by associating and repetition.

Ask this person to draw what he saw from a different angle and he would fail to get anything on paper because he just uses associations, he doesn’t realise what he saw. That’s also the reason why his perspective is off by a fair bit, he sees it as a 2d plane instead of 3d objects like a person normally sees it.

The same reasoning can be applied here. The person from the above article is using his long term memory and associates what he sees with previous observations he has had.

The same way a chess player can easily recognise over 1000 different games by just glancing over a chess board is just the same method this person uses to remember what he saw. He uses the part of the brain that ‘normal’ people use to recognise faces instantly to recognise that city.

Often people are underdeveloped in social skills however. Since their brain focuses and their nervous system is wired on a particular ability, in his case, recognising form by means of association.

Riverside Gallery, Richmond, London
20 January - 11 March 2007

Following on from his phenomenally successful exhibition Not A Camera at Orleans House Gallery in 2003, Stephen Wiltshire - one of the world’s most famous autistic artists - returns to Richmond. His retrospective presented drawings, paintings and prints spanning two decades and included recent commissions of local views. The exhibition attracted international media attention and over 32,000 visitors. Many visitors had taken to their hearts the young teenager who had appeared in the 1987 BBC documentary The Foolish Wise Ones, but few knew what had happened to him since and how he had grown and flourished as an artist. After the exhibition, Stephen continued creating and has traveled widely, including trips to Europe and Japan last year. He received an MBE for his services to the arts, and in the autumn of 2006 opened his own gallery in the heart of London.

This new exhibition carries on where the previous one left off and shows recently created urban landscapes. The showpiece of the exhibition is a reproduction of a panorama of the Tokyo skyline (the original is over ten feet long) and an original panorama of Rome. These astonishing new works, on a far grander scale, are bold, confident and show Stephen’s virtuosity and fluid control to the greatest extent.

Mark De Novellis
Curator of Exhibitions and Collections
Education and Children’s Services

Orleans House Gallery, Riverside, Twickenham, TW1 3DJ

Tel: 020 8831 6490
Email: m.denovellis@richmond.gov.uk

best wishes

Matthew Treweek

Best wishes,

Adam Feinstein