Aelita Andre - The Mozart of the visual arts

Aelita Andre was born in 2.007 in Melbourne, Australia. Aelita's parents first realised Aelita had a natural talent for painting one day when Aelita was only an infant. 

Her father Michael recalls, “Before Aelita was born I had dabbled in painting on and off as a pastime."  

He lay the canvas down in the family room and was about to begin painting when Aelita, still a tiny infant, crawled onto the canvas and without any hesitation began squeezing the tubes of paint and delightedly yelling and laughing smearing and dabbing paint across the canvas. 

It was instantly evident she loved her newfound activity and the effect she was creating, smiling and joyously babbling the way an infant does.  

Her eyes glanced from one point to another absorbed in the act of painting; the sheer pleasure.

Her father stood up and looked at her painting instantly struck by the beauty of his daughter's work. 

She had created an extraordinarily beautiful painting - a genuine work of art -  the work of a mature abstract artist. 

The painting was innocent and liberated yet mature and masterly in its execution and effect. 

Aelita Andre had hit on something fully formed, a style that has grown and developed and branched out and continues evolving to this day.

Nikka sought the opinion of a professional gallerist, approaching a highly regarded gallery in Melbourne, Australia, showing the curator several of Aelita’s paintings. 

He loved what he saw and insisted on exhibiting them. Nikka told her husband that not only was the curator impressed but insisted on exhibiting all Aelita’s paintings in an upcoming group exhibition. 

Nikka added she didn’t mention Aelita was a toddler at that stage a twenty month old, confessing she didn’t know how to tell him, so didn’t mention age at all so as not to prejudice the curator’s attitude to Aelita’s paintings. 

Aelita was a one year old with sixteen of her paintings now officially part of an exhibition in a commercial gallery.

“Sixty Minutes” ran a story about Aelita calling the segment, “The Next Big Thing.” 

They interviewed Monash University Professor of Art, Robert Nelson and showed him Aelita’s paintings but did not reveal Aelita’s age. He called Aelita’s paintings, “very credible abstract works with an Asian style and strong calligraphic elements with amazingly liberated gestures.” 

Only afterwards they told him Aelita’s age and he was surprised but said that there was a certain liberation in her style reminiscent of a child adding they are an, “antidote to the oppressive qualities of expectation in western painting.”

Taking the lead from Aelita’s own interest in everything to do with astronomy and dinosaurs, the parents showed her Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’ series and to this day she loves to watch it and now the new series hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Watching people of the calibre of Carl Sagan and Richard Attenborough will have a myriad of subtle yet profound effects on a young mind. 

They absorb so much more than just the information presented: the presenter’s demeanor; vocal style; speech pattern; vocabulary, the refinement of an individual, all plays a part in what is being transmitted to a child.

From the very first painting Aelita ever did she would concentrate far longer than on any other activity. 

It has been observed that a significant number of adults who pursue a particular field or career path in life first develop an interest in it at an early age as young as four or five. 

Yet for a person to achieve a mastery and success at that age is unheard of. 

There was no learning phase, no apprenticeship, no trial and error. Her style was there, present, fully developed from the beginning. 

I don’t like the term ‘prodigy’, said Michael, “because of the connotations of what it implies, yet what Aelita creates, and the impulses that produce it, must be acknowledged and recognized.” 

An interviewer for the American talk show “Good Morning America” asked Aelita, 

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

Without missing a beat the four year old Aelita laughed and replied, “A caterpillar!” 

Only Andy Warhol gave answers like that. 

The Absurdists and Dadaists would have been proud. 

Recently when a reporter asked Aelita how long will she continue to paint for, 

Aelita answered, “I will paint until I die, but it doesn't matter because I will live forever!” 

Aelita Andre's parents recall an incident where she awoke at one a.m. in the morning crying and repeating over and over, “I want to paint, I want to paint!” 

In her own way Aelita recognizes that, for her, painting is as natural as breathing, walking and speaking and will remain with her for the rest of her life.

Aelita painted before she could talk and walk. 

Painting was her first coordinated expressive action. 

Apart from the immediate aesthetic appeal of her creations, what, her parents wondered, must be happening inside her mind from this tactile and immersive experience? 

Her brain would be forming a myriad of connections that may have otherwise never formed. 

It was something beyond the appeal of the final result although that was immensely satisfying to see. 

Aelita makes volcanoes from coloured sand and pours paint to simulate primordial eruptions of lava. 

She dramatically accompanies this with stories of escaping animals from ‘Pangea’ - the name given to the Earth’s continents 300 million years ago when they were all joined together as a ‘supercontinent’. 

This is just one of the many and varied themes Aelita depicts in her works.

Aelita employs techniques and materials naturally and freely as she sees fit at that moment. 

Every action contributes to the painting and is infused with a genuine expression of joy and wonder. 

Often while painting Aelita will pause and say, “Oh wow, that’s so beautiful!”, or, “Oh, look at that!” 

Aelita comes up with her extraordinary creative and evocative names after finishing her painting, then bows and says in a refined voice, “thank you”, and exits the painting area.

Aelita has never had any formal training in art although several artists have all offered to ‘teach’ her for free something Aelita has so far refused. 

Aelita has achieved artistic and financial success by using only her intuition so she sees no need to be taught. 

Aelita says, “I don't want to copy anyone, I want to be original!” 

Learning is a double edged sword because you can simply begin to take on the characteristics of your teacher and lose your own originality so it is a very very difficult question.

Aelita loves learning science and sees no division between it and art. 

Aelita only watches educational programs on her iPad including Khan Academy lectures. Aelita understands atoms and subatomic particles, protons and that protons contain three quarks! 

Children are naturals to understand these abstract concepts because they live in an imaginative abstract world where normal reality seamlessly connects with the absurd abstract world just like the atomic world and the rule-breaking subatomic world.

Aelita started painting two to three paintings a week and she has a vast and ever growing body of work. 

When Aelita is not painting she is sketching in her drawing pads. 

The walls of the parents home also are covered with sketches of fantastic unicorns, dinosaurs and butterflies. 

When she is not sketching she is making movies on her iPad.

Some people may think that because Aelita is such a prolific painter that somehow she does not lead a normal life but in fact nothing could be further from the truth. 

Aelita loves playing the piano and violin, looking forward to her weekly lessons. 

She also loves ballet, rythmic gymnastics, singing and learning drums. 

She has so much energy and enjoys developing her skills and being with her friends in her activities. 

Everywhere Aelita goes she makes friends and walks up to and talks to everyone - she is definitely not shy. 

Aelita loves wordplay jokes and much of what Aelita finds funny is humour derived from language itself.

In November 2.013 Aelita painted live in front of 20,000 people in the LDS Concert Hall in Salt lake City, Utah. 

She loved the audience attention and created an amazing painting attaching a real violin to the canvas which she played while it was glued to the painting.

In February/March 2.014 Aelita staged a solo exhibition exhibition in the prestigious Yan Gallery in Hong Kong and also at the Asia Art Fair in Hong Kong.

Aelita is looking forward to her exhibitions in London, New York and Japan.