Painting in the Dark - John Bramblitt

          John Bramblitt, known as the 'sightless painter' has inspired millions of people with his work of art. He started having severe epileptic seizures that began taking a toll on his vision. He slowly began losing his sight from the age of 11 and finally became blind in his 20s. Due to his anger and depression, he began expressing his feeling and thoughts in the form of ART. In fact, he believes that taking up painting after losing his sight was mostly an act of defiance.  

          His 25 years of  visual experience provided his with mental images of what he wanted to paint but unfortunately he did not know how to convert them on to a canvas he couldn't see.  Finally, Bramlitt discovered "puffy paint",  which is used for fabric and leaves a thin raised line...a line Bramlitt can touch. He uses 'puffy paint' to produce an initial outline of the subject he wishes to draw on the canvas and feels his way across the raised lines with his left hand. Using a brush held in his right hand, he fills in the colours on to the canvas.

          For colour, Bramlitt uses oil paint. According to him, although oil paint is messier, more pungent and dries much slower compared to acrylics, it offers something no paint can. : idiosyncratic  viscosity.  He says,“White feels thicker on my fingers, almost like toothpaste, and black feels slicker and thinner. To mix a gray, I’ll try to get the paint to have a feel of medium viscosity”. In fact, he has learned to recognize and mix all the colors he uses by his sense of touch. And the colors are the first thing one notices about Bramblitt’s work.

        John Bramlitt has developed and progressed his touch skills in impressive ways. Research has shown that regardless of training in Braille, the blind have better have better touch skills than the sighted, especially when it comes to touching complex spatial patterns. This cross-modal plasticity is thought to be a result of the blind’s visual cortex being reassigned to other senses. Brain imaging shows that when touching complex patterns, the visual cortex of blind, but not sighted individuals is activated in systematic ways. 

"ART is one of the few ways that we humans can produce something that has a meaningful effect on another’s life. Art does not feed or clothe us, but it gives us a connection with our fellow man that we cannot live without. "