Dane Bottino

• Bio
• Artwork

See Dane's Self-Portraits: Age 7, Age 14

Bio
Dane Bottino is a self-taught artist. He started drawing when he was two years of age. He is autistic and lost his beginning language about the same age. He instead spent every waking moment drawing to express his emotions, desires and thoughts. Surprisingly, even at three years of age, he could draw with correct perspective and correct spelling, etc. He would give grocery lists of intricate and correct images of whatever he wanted. He has always been very obsessive and compulsive about his drawing.

For example, when he was young he would draw on whatever he could get his hands on: books, newspapers and telephone books. He would have a picture on every page, front and back. He would stay up all night until a series of pictures was complete. For example, early pictures were drawn over and over until he was pleased with the image and then he would not draw that subject again. Sometimes this process would include thousands of drawings on the same theme. He has gone through periods on Dr. Seuss, imaginary animals, realistic animals, cartoons, etc. At fifteen years old he has basic functional language, yet he still chooses to communicate through art instead of common language.

Dane is very right brained and this rules the way he sees the world. Lately, he has done a series on the history of art, interpreting the following: cave art, Greek, Medieval, Renaissance, Impressionism, Van Gogh, Picasso, Warhol, etc. Additionally, he has become interested in graphic arts and would like to create a web page to sell his art.

He has also shown a talent in music and has been found to have a perfect pitch. He can sing language and this might be an avenue for future expression. He can easily adjust his styles and seems to be expanding his creativity and horizons.

Dane has been on TV numerous times and has been filmed by the Discovery channel and the BBC. If you are interested in contacting him, you can email him. He is located in Southern California and exhibits on a regular basis. He sells his work and will have a recent piece in the UC Davis Mind Institute Gallery collection. He hopes to hear from you.

~ Vivian Bottino

Artwork

To view a larger version of one of the pieces, please click on the thumbnail image of it.

All artwork and written content has been consented by family member or legal guardian

Back to Top