MEXICO CITY
The art students in white smocks bend over detailed engravings and squint at their canvases amid rows of easels. Their paintings many of which recall the work of expressionist masters now tour museums in the U.S. and Europe, impressing connoisseurs of fine art.
But this is the Mexican School of Down Art, where all the students have Down syndrome, and their accomplishments are wiping away preconceptions about what mentally disabled people are capable of, particularly in the developing world where resources for the handicapped are scarce and many struggle to be treated with dignity.
Their paintings and lithographs “shatter the stereotype that individuals with Down syndrome have no interior mental life of richness and complexity,” said Dr. David Braddock, who oversees cognitive disability research at the University of Colorado and who helped bring their artwork to the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.
About one in 800 babies is born with Down syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes mental retardation, facial deformity and, often, serious heart defects.
And while not everyone with Down syndrome is artistic, art instructor Daniel Perez says his students’ disability helps them see the world more creatively. He sees them transform verbal shortcomings into symbolic art, with a fresh perspective that shines through in their paintings.
“They have a capacity, a sensitivity, for art: They’re very creative,” Perez said. “Their limitations enable them to see the world in a way you and I don’t.”
