Walter Mika

Born in 1961 with Downs Syndrome, self-taught artist Walter Mika has been producing his drawings (one each day) since 2002, when he enrolled at Pure Vision Arts, a program providing studio and exhibition space for the developmentally disabled. Inspired by cartoons and comic books, Mika works with oil pastels on large sheers of paper, filling his compositions almost to the edges with primitivistic figures whose full frontal impact recall Willem De Kooning’s Abstract Expressionist paintings of women. Vigorous marks and toothsome grins create a creepy clown vibe, putting these characters on a spectrum between cuteness and mania.