Diana de Avila
Sarasota, Florida
“My art came suddenly, like a bolt of lightning.”
This bolt of lightning packed a punch; Diana De Avila (she/her/hers) quite suddenly found herself an acquired savant with synesthesia. Shapes and colors appeared out of nowhere for her to pluck in the middle of the night’s air and paint onto computer screens and her iPad in lieu of sleeping.
It’s as if she knew exactly what to do, which application and tool to select and how to compose her pieces, which colors to use and where to swirl them together, and as she cranked up the music she let her intuition take over and just began to paint.
Acquired Savant syndrome is so rare that there is no single medical theory that adequately explains it. In Diana’s case, it could have been many things: it could have been her worsening traumatic brain injury, it could have been the relapse of her MS, maybe it was the high dose steroids to manage her optic neuritis.
Diana has lived a colorful life well before picking up a paintbrush. After enlisting in the Army as a military police at the age of 18, she was in a motorcycle crash that left her with a traumatic brain injury and a resultantly swift career change as a nun. Later, Diana studied education and psychology and learned how to code before delving into current interests of fractal geometry, quantum physics, chaos theory, and augmented reality.
Whatever the reason for the onset, since Diana’s acquired Savantism in 2017, she has flourished within her new role as artist. Diana hones in on themes of galactic, math, and science-related forays, as well as spiritual journeys, and introspection into the mastery of color and movement. Underpinned throughout Diana’s artwork is forever Diana: her spirit of tenacity and wonder.
“I have learned that I have grit, courage, and curiosity. I entered a world that would have scared me in normal circumstances. I knew nothing about art. But my circumstances were different, and I learned to work with them and use them for good. I realized that sometimes you have to bust your way into a ‘thing’ and make your own unique path.”
