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Neurodiversity

Project type

Paintings

Date

January 2023

Location

Baton Rouge, LA

I began this series on neurodivergence in January 2023 and tapped into the educator nature at my core. When trying to understand the painful nature of my life experiences, my research turned to neurodivergence. I’m a visual learner who has always enjoyed translating science to a wide audience through colorful graphics and videos. I love the conversations that come from this form of outreach.
Having conversations about what I was learning about myself and my neurological differences led me to a community I didn’t realize I was lacking. Those conversations ultimately inspired me to create artwork translating the academic jargon describing the differences in mental and sensory processing that people on the spectrum experience. I hope I was able to communicate how these complex concepts impact my daily life and community.

A venetian mask that is cracked with half of it broken into falling pieces on the bottom and floating feather strokes at the top. There are tears coming from the missing half and another styled half mask in the background.

Unmasking

A visual representation of the beauty and pain of freeing oneself from a mask that helps a neurodivergent person to navigate a neurotypical world. Some of the shedding process is light and easy with the feeling of floating away while sometimes it can feel very heavy, like chunks breaking off and falling away. There are even layers of masking - a mask representing what you hide from society and a mask of what you hide from yourself. The outermost mask must stay at least partially intact to survive in a society that rarely grants us the accommodations we need. And the inner mask may take a lifetime to remove as there are always new things to learn about ourselves when presented with new challenges.

In the background are neurons with a gold electron cloud at the center. In the foreground are human brains connected by silver and black lightning bolts (black in the center, edged by silver). Each connection point shares similar colors

Meeting of Minds/Diversity of Thoughts

Neurodivergence means having a unique experience of the world with our differences in sensory and mental processing. I believe the greater our curiosity about our different experiences, the more connections we can form. If you aren’t having empathetic conversations with diverse people then you can become very isolated in thought. There will always be more things that unite us than separate us as humans. Being open-minded, receptive to hearing others’ perspectives on life, is how we build more supportive, inclusive communities.

Two dark grey human silhouettes with three squiggle lines like ropes between them connecting them. Within each body are a series of black and dark red lines tracing the body’s outline framing a dark red circle in the center of the chest area. The figure on the left is surrounded by a bluish aura while the figure on the right has a red aura overlapping in the center between the bodies. The aura’s color concentration fades with distance from the body.

Coregulation

Coregulation is the ability to calm one’s strong emotional response to internal or external stimuli with the support of another being. This interaction leads to syncing states of beings (moods) and can be a calming or agitating experience. People with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often body double to achieve coregulation.

There is a split in the middle of the painting almost as if there are two paintings. On the right is a view of the ocean with clouds in the sky while on the left is black with streaks of red outlining a silhouette of the image on the right.

Survival

14”x11” Oil on canvas
This piece is very personal to me and helped me to process the major trauma of an externalized meltdown this year. As someone with an internalized pathological demand avoidance or persistent drive for autonomy (PDA) profile these kinds of meltdowns are rare. This painting captures the duality of turmoil and peace I felt during that meltdown. I let out a lot of emotions I had been suppressing, mostly anger, and I felt so much relief just giving in to them. My lack of control over my nervous system, and being a Black, autistic woman, led to me being perceived as a dangerous threat and violence was used to restrain me. My instincts of self-preservation took over and I put a mask of calm, feigning submission, in order to survive.

A colorful background with haphazard, overlapping streaks of bright colors: blue, yellow, red, green, purple with the word TRUE in capital letters in the center foreground. The letters are white with curved edges and a gold outline.

Truth of the Mind

11”x14” Acrylic on canvas
An autistic mind is neurodiverse and often overloaded with information. Thoughts can sometimes feel chaotic but also vibrant as we process so much more information than neurotypical people. We often find ourselves denying our differences due to internalized ableism but there are types when our experiences are so unique that there is no denying the truth of our neurodivergence.

The background is all silver. There is an asymmetrical infinity symbol being filtered through a rectangular black and white sieve (a basket weave pattern) leading to a smaller loop behind the sieve than in front. At the bottom of the painting are a series of four pie charts with slices with the colors of the spectrum and a black slice with white squiggle lines running outwards from the center of the slice to its arc edge.

Burnout

11”x14” Acrylic on canvas
Autism is more recently represented by an infinity symbol with the rainbow spectrum superimposed on it. In order to capture the experience of autistic burnout visually I created an asymmetrical version of the symbol being filtered through a rectangular black and white sieve. The sieve could be interpreted as a chokepoint restricting performance levels.
At the bottom of the painting are a series of pie charts representing the different phases of fluctuating energy levels and skill regression I experienced. I had so much dissociation and alexithymia and almost zero interoception, represented by the black and white slices, at peak burnout. I would often be pushing myself too hard during bursts of energy and then needing long spans of recovery time. It took years to shorten the cycle and I am still working on finding balance to this day.

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