From George Hotz cracking the iPhone that took years to develop by a team of the most qualified adult computer programmers, to becoming millionaires by creating free MySpace layouts like Ashley Qualls did, these days, it seems the possibilities for children to outshine most adults are everywhere. Not even an art gallery in Chelsea is out of reach for 4-year-old, Australian artist, Aelita Andre.
Andre, whose parents are both artists, has been labeled “a bona fide Abstract Expressionist painter.” Using typical adolescent craft items such as pipe cleaners, Aelita has been painting since the age of 9 months and sold her first painting at the age of 2, for an astounding $24,000 at a 2009 Hong Kong exhibition. Her current showing is at the Agora Gallery in Manhattan’s typically trendy, Chelsea neighborhood. Her show titled, “The Prodigy of Color” consists of pieces ranging from $4,400 to as much as $10,000, and she has already sold three of her pieces for a whopping $27,000. Gallery owner Angela Di Bello has said of Aelita, “she’s special in that she really knows what she’s doing, and in that, she understands color, composition, texture, and is consistent.”
Natural talent may be an indisputable fact, but somehow in an economy like this, one can’t help but wonder why adults can’t seem to muster the successful creativity needed for successes of this magnitude. If only one could truly fathom the opportunities for adults, if we valued the ability to learn and think freely as we once did as children, and continue to encourage our children to do. Learn one new thing a day, share information with your friends and family, continue to bridge the gap between humans and learning and perhaps, one day we could have cures for the incurable, or perhaps, even live more like what Hanna-Barbera imagined the year 2062 would be like? The only way to find out is to challenge adults to learn from their children as much as they expect their children, to learn from them.