Muscle Memory

Savant Syndrome

Year: 2026
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 195 × 130 cm

Part of the Muscle Memory series.

Modern individualism constantly tells us that we are unique. We want to believe that our character, abilities, tastes, ideas and choices distinguish us from everyone else. Being different is no longer enough; somehow, being exceptional has become part of the story as well.

But this desire is not ours alone. Everyone around us is also trying to be different, to build a life of their own, to find their own voice, and somehow to distinguish themselves from everyone else.

Everyone wants to be unique in exactly the same way.

This is where the boundary between individuality and the system begins to blur. The desires, measures of success and forms of distinction that we think of as our own can sometimes look surprisingly similar to those of others. Yet we continue to experience them as deeply personal.

Savant Syndrome exists for me within this contradiction. On one side is the desire not to be ordinary; on the other, a system in which being exceptional is increasingly expected of everyone.

Perhaps the question is not how different we really are.

Perhaps the more uncomfortable question is: How much of our desire to be unique is actually our own?

Or, if being exceptional is something expected of everyone: What does exceptional mean anymore?

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