Monday, November 10, 2008

Stephen Wiltshire

I was watching some doc on the History Channel about The Brain, and before I could flip back to The Hills they started talking about Stephen Wilshire, the savant artist from London who is famous for looking at a cityscape for about 20 minutes and then going back to his apartment and drawing it, re-creating it on paper perfectly to scale in AMAZING detail. I had heard about him about a year ago and he's amazing, so I went to re-visit his website, where I came upon this drawing, which I was to find out a few minutes later was his favorite.

Now, the shit he draws is amazing. If he drew it LOOKING at the stuff it'd be amazing; the fact that he mentally takes a picture of it and then draws without looking at the scene is beyond the super human.

But I'm wondering...if he drew this Subway scene in Nov of 2007, why is the World Trade Center in the picture? I read his bio and learned that he has visited NYC 3 times, tho I could not pinpoint when. But even so, recreating scenes from 6 years before does not seem to be his modus operandi, no? Look at scene, recreate scene; there is nothing in his history to suggest that he would draw a scene and then say "fuck it, I'm putting in the Twin Towers cause I remember them there from years before" - in fact, his art seems to be nothing if not absurdly, definitively, factually sure and OF THE MOMENT. So I'm at a loss here. Surely I'm missing something simple, right in my face.

Steve-O, I'd hate to call BULLSHIT on you!!!! ;)

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