An email I received from a friend of mine:

Another thing I heard on CBC Radio....

A blind painter (blind since birth), Turkish, his name is Esref
Armagan.

Apparently his work has impact on scientists' understanding of the
brain.

His work has baffled and changed the views of many in academic circles.


NOTE: *.jpg pictures are attached



from CBC:

Blind Painter

Our guest host, Bob Carty started this segment looking at an
accomplished painting of a bowl of fruit. It has shading, colour,
perspective and it's realistic - not so different, he imagined, from
how Paul Gauguin himself might render a bowl of fruit. The only
difference is that this picture was painted by an artist who has been
blind since birth.

The bowl of fruit was painted by a Turkish man named Esref Armagan. He
recently traveled to Boston where he was put through a battery of
neurological and psychological tests. Researchers believe that Mr.
Armagan's skills as a painter might shed new light on how the blind
'see' the world around them.

The Current traveled to Esref Armagan's hometown of Ankara in Turkey
to find out what a man who has never seen can show us about art.


Canadian Psychologist - The Art of Blindness

Esref Armagan's painting have caused quite a stir in the science
world. Mr. Armagan recently traveled to the United States where
scientists from Boston University and Harvard put the painter through
a number of tests to better understand how a blind man can paint
realistic compositions of things he's never seen.

In our Toronto studio we were joined by one of the researchers who
conducted tests on the artist. Dr. John Kennedy is a professor of
psychology at the University of Toronto. He has spent a career
examining art from the perspective of the blind and he's the author of
Drawing and the Blind.


Blind Technologies

Esref Armagan is on the cutting edge of what science is learning about
perception and blindness. But for years now, science has been steadily
applying what it is learning about blindness and the brain to develop
remarkable new technologies.

Things like machines that let the blind "see" through their ears,
their fingers and even their tongues. Some of these hi-tech advances
are being worked on at the University of Montreal. That's where
Maurice Ptito is a professor in the department of Optemetry. He was in
our Montreal studio.



LINKS:

http://www.mersina.com/gallery/armagan/index.html

http://www.anatolia.com/anatolia/Gal...an/default.asp

CBC site of "The Current Program"
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2005/200502/20050218.html