Size:
38 x 54 cm (15 x 22 inches)
Medium:
Inks and mixed media with underprint on Fabriano Artistico 640gsm HP Watercolour paper.
Original handmade variant:
1 of 3
Status:
Available
Archetapestry IX: The Autist
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This work is available as a limited-edition print (15 editions), created on Hahnemuhle German Etching Paper at the size of your choice.
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International buyers: The work will be made available for you in Niki’s Etsy store .The print will be delivered with a numbered certificate of authenticity. You will be contacted as soon as it’s available. If you would like your print personally signed by the artist, we will contact you to make arrangements for shipping your order from South Africa.
THE AUTIST
Unsurprisingly, I am not the first person to posit this, and a goodly amount of theorising has been done by Jungian theorists and contemporary scholars, which have explored connections between autism and archetypal structures, suggesting that individuals on the autism spectrum may express or embody certain archetypal qualities.
These include some, all or more than, the following archetypes:
The Observer or Scientist
Commonly linked to deep intellectual curiosity and meticulous hyperfocus, what many autistic people call ‘areas of special interest’, which aligns with the introspective and analytical nature often observed in people with autism. It also reflects an interest in patterns, systems, and objective observation. This is the clockwork heart, symbolising patterns, both enacted and observed, fundamental routines and processes, to be followed as meticulously as the steps a chemist would use in the alchemical processes inherent in their speciality. The necessary samenesses that I cling to, to keep myself sane.
The Sage:
Is introspection, wisdom, and emotional detachment (also linked to the clockwork heart), traits that resonate with the intense internal focus and unique perceptions of many autistic people, which, incidentally vary completely from one to the next. For me, the Sage became manifest at age 4, when I realised I was different from other people, and I set about studying them and myself to find out why, how to become one, and how best to mask the fact that I wasn’t the same.
The Outsider or Orphan:
Are the archetypes I first and most strongly identified with throughout life. They are the characters who most make necessary the mask, worn by those who feel inherently separate from humanity, societal norms, the common man, and in my and many cases, see this difference as a bad thing, a character failing, a wrongness. And so we fashion from observed behaviour and fragments of others, elaborate masks to fit into a construct we don’t belong in. We think, experience and exist differently, which is not only overlooked and misunderstood, it is ignored and judged, something only too commonly experienced by minorities.
No two Autistic people are alike, and yet there are archetypal veins running through our lives. These interpretations suggest that while “the Autist” itself is not a traditional Jungian archetype, certain Jungian archetypes can reflect or parallel aspects of the complex tapestry of the autistic experience.