Deficit. Insufficiency. Dysfunction. Absence. Or maybe a basis of efficient artistic practice? Quite the opposite, a complete 180-degree turn? Maybe it’s a superpower? The common understanding of system mechanics can be misleading. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature,” as they say in IT. A “bug” is an error that needs to be removed. A “feature” is an unplanned feature that can be tolerated and even exploited, if you tilt your head and look at it from a different perspective.
About 2.5% of the population lacks the ability to consciously recall and create mental images. This is an extreme form of aphantasia. In this case, memories of objects, people, places, and events are associated with sounds, smells, or logical concepts. There is no mental imagery of shape, color, or light intensity. There may not even be memory of dreams or the visual experience of dreams. There is only memory of emotions experienced in dreams.
Aphantasia as basis of artistic practice
It’s no secret that Malwina Jachimczak, Contemporary Painter, suffers from complete aphantasia. This defines her artistic practice. Malwina has no visual memory of the paintings she’s painted. She has to look at reproductions in her portfolio to reference the graphic elements and colors of her works. She can’t recall any image she’s ever seen before. Total blackness. Or emptiness.
So how on earth…?! Does she paint? Because her system works completely opposite to what the common understanding of the process suggests. She can’t imagine the painting she’ll paint. Therefore, she doesn’t begin with visualization. For her, the intellectual concept comes first, the verbal description of the composition. She begins with the need to represent, for example, a figure. But what kind? The whole figure, or a fragment? In what setting? A closed or open composition? What aesthetic impression? Strength and peace, joy or shyness? These are all purely intellectual decisions expressed verbally.
Once the decisions are made, she sets about assembling the representations. Every single element of her work is linked to a specific source, which she carefully selects. She takes numerous photographs herself to achieve representations that meet her goals. There’s no room for mental manipulation, such as “This flower, I’ll just turn it around in my head, look at it from below, and unfurl it a bit because it’s too close to the bud.” Each representation is specific, and the amount of work required to gather the materials is significant.
Photorealism as the default but dull
The lack of a mental image leads to interesting consequences to the artistic practice. Firstly, Malwina’s default painting style is photorealism. The brutal, uncompromising realism of the 1970s? Hold her tea. If she can’t see anything in her head, she’ll paint you what she sees in reality. If she doesn’t, it’s only because she wants a different effect. Photorealism isn’t her goal. She seeks synthetic, simplified, and abstracted forms, and this costs her both work and effort.
Secondly, the lack of visual memory means the inability to derive pleasure from an image that was once in her head. Contact with color and shape brings Malwina satisfaction—and in large quantities—only in real time. Working on a painting gives her immediate pleasure and gratification, further enhanced by loud music. I’m convinced that in such conditions, she enters a state of flow, which she could stretch to the limits of her body’s physiological endurance.
Conclusion: consider carefully whether your shortcomings might actually be superpowers placed in the wrong contexts.
I’ve attached the flow effect f her artistic practice. The gallery invited an auction with a female theme. Since the idea of weaving human figures into the work had been on Malwina’s mind for some time, she made a quick decision. Three days of work. The beginning of a new series. The evolution of Vases of Life. The time has come for strong, calm, hieratic women.
