Shuto Todoroki

     

 

Born February 3, 1998 in Paris

 

When he was 3 years old and struggled to communicate through speech, Shuto was diagnosed with a developmental disorder similar to autism.

 

Then, from entering elementary school until the age of 10, he was unable to write correctly while holding a pen in his hand. We tried to remedy this by making him use thicker pens that were easier to hold or by securing the pen with a clothespin, but Shuto didn't show much motivation, and the times he did manipulate a pen were increasingly rare, so much so that during his first 4 years of schooling, it is the same pen that remained in his case.

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Thinking of a method that might help him, and knowing that he liked music very much, we then tried to learn using ekaki uta, or songs to draw. We then entrusted the ekaki uta book and CD to his music teacher, which will be the starting point of his evolution until today.

Excited by these songs, he began to scribble everywhere, on paper of course but also on the wall next to his bed or on his sheets.

 

 

 

This is how he enthusiastically began to draw while singing, and his paintings imbued with the joy he felt gradually morphed into colorful drawn works by combining a unique handwriting made of hiragana, katakana, letters d alphabet, kanji etc.

He spent his days drawing on the A4 sheets he brought back from my desk. When he was not satisfied with what he was doing, he would throw the sheet away and pick up a new one. The proportion was around 2,000 sheets for a completed work.

From a young age, the energy with which he held the pen was hard to imagine.

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We also see those moments of intimacy he maintains with the motifs he draws, to which he addresses and with whom he always seems to be in communication.

The art therapy started in 2016 allows him to confront new forms of expression. But the style that is his and that he developed from his earliest childhood lives on to this day.

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He who has difficulty expressing himself in words, represents his own vision of the free world through his paintings with which he communicates throughout the creation process. These moments of creation are for him moments of happiness.