Artist paints picture of life

By Ed Merrison
DONNA Williams grew up as a one-person culture, misunderstood and not understanding.
But now she has moved out of autism and into artism, and is making abundant sense of herself and the world around her.
Upwey artist Donna was diagnosed as psychotic as a toddler and later labelled mad and disturbed for not being able to communicate despite her apparent intelligence.
Doctors diagnosed her with autism in 1990, by which time she had been spent years disabled by the ignorance of others.
Her painting, sculpture and multimedia exhibition Autism and Sensing: The Unlost Instinct shows how this one-person culture has evolved to reflect, touch and even instruct other people.
But before this author of nine books began touching people’s lives, she was feeling everything around her.
She was in her 20s before she realised the things she touched – trees, gravestones, balustrades – did not have feelings of their own.
“When I learned these things had no consciousness – that there wasn’t anyone in the mirror, that it was just a trick of the light – that was shocking,” she said.
Donna describes her younger self as a feral monkey, wild and compulsive, with next to no interaction with other people and a wish to be a fly on the wall.
Now in her 40s, she began to understand herself just over a decade ago, although she says 70 per cent of her life is still spent in her inner world.
Growing up isolated gave Donna lots of time to observe others, and has provided plenty of grist to a creative mill that rarely ceases grinding.
She has written films, recorded two albums of folk, jazz and blues music and penned the number one bestsellers Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere.
She has also travelled the world as a public speaker, and is no longer haunted by the thought people will try to know her, talk to her or appreciate her because of her art.
And she looks forward to connecting with more people through the exhibition, which opened recently at Vanguard Gallery in Northcote.
“There’s a beauty, a brutality and an honesty to this art that creates empathy with the inner worlds of people,” she said.
Autism left Donna with little choice but to live in her own inner world, but it has given her insight into other people’s relationship with their self.
It is a relationship which, she believes, holds the key to a better link with other people and with the wider world.
“Many people strive to get too far away from themselves and they find themselves lost,” she said. “I hope the exhibition gives them a moment of relief or shock that brings them back home to themselves.”
Donna’s exhibition is on from noon to 6pm Tuesday to Saturday until Saturday, 28 October, at Vanguard Gallery, 234 High Street, Northcote.