Emerging South Australian regional artist Ashton Filmer paints with bold, bright colours expressing the vibrancy and joy at having a second chance at life after being revived on the side of the road, his body smashed in a head-on car crash eight years ago.
Key points:
- Ashton Filmer has become a mural artist after surviving a head-on car crash in 2013
- He suffered a severe left-side brain injury and broke both his legs and feet in the crash
- An academic says the brain can adapt to work around injury but a younger brain is better at this than an older brain
He “broke everything from the hips down” and suffered a severe left-side brain injury.
He still has some debilitating effects, including fatigue and loss of some function on his right side, but art has been his canvas to recovery.
His eight-year rehabilitation journey has elevated him from painting bins, eskies and skateboards at home in rural Wudinna to his first major public art mural among some of the best street art in the world as part of Colour Tumby Bay Street Art.
Twenty-five buildings in the small seaside Eyre Peninsula town have been painted in vibrant murals during three weekend art festivals since 2018.
Mr Filmer joined the elite list of artists this month, painting in a baseball cap with the logo YOLT — You only live twice.
He coined the phrase with another young car crash survivor while recovering from his accident at Hamstead Rehabilitation in Adelaide in 2014.
The mural festival has exposed him to nationally renowned career mural artists and he has relished the chance to learn from them.
Adelaide mural artist Jack Fran said the calibre of art in Tumby Bay was world-class and better than some capital cities because of the international artists secured to feature in the previous two festivals.
At 25, Mr Filmer is one of the youngest to feature and he was nervous about the festival.
Art opens doors
He is a member of the Carclew and Country Arts SA Arts Squad, a collaboration aimed to help develop career pathways in arts.
It had been therapy but now was opening doors for him.
He was in a coma for 41 days and has had to learn the most basic of human motions.
SA Brain Injury Rehabilitation Service consultant rehabilitation physician Maria Paul said Mr Filmer’s brain injury was “extremely severe”.
“Although his survival prognosis was good, based on timely emergency and subsequent hospital intervention, the extent of damage and disabilities was likely to be quite high,” Dr Paul said.
“I even had to learn to tie my shoelaces again and before my accident I was right-handed so I had to learn to use my left hand and now I’m ambidextrous as a painter.”
While wheelchair-bound, he took up drawing and art to pass the time.
His mother Tamara Blayney remembered his struggle to walk.
“It’s been nearly the eight years since the accident and the first three were hard for him — hard for all of us because he wasn’t sure he was going to walk,” Ms Blayney said.
“For a young man not being able to walk, it was pretty hard to watch but you put the smiley face on in the mornings and you never show how you are feeling.
“It was always, you’d nick out around the corner and you’d break down out there, and you’d come back in and just do it.”
Ms Blayney said she was proud of her son’s achievements.
“So to see this, it’s so amazing,” she said.
“He doesn’t want to be seen as the artist with the disability but wants to be seen as the artist he is.
“He’s just amazing for what he’s overcome.”
Healing power
Dr Paul said Mr Filmer had progressed very well and having a very supportive family and community helped in recovery.
University of Adelaide Emeritus Professor Robert Vink said Mr Filmer’s story showed the power of the brain to heal.
He said theories about the right side of the brain, the more artistic, becoming more dominant after left-side brain injury could not be proven.
“Both our hemispheres work together with no evidence of dominance in either side,” he said.
“Certainly the younger brain is much better at recovery of function than an older brain.
“What likely happened to your relatively young accident victim is that the damage to his brain forced him to use other circuits that were already there but less utilised.”
Professor Vink said Mr Filmer’s learning to walk and talk again was evidence of the brain adapting to work around the injury.
“So while the inaccurate concept of brain asymmetry and hemisphere dominance still persists, it is more likely a story about the brain’s wonderful ability to increase the utilisation of alternative neuronal pathways to overcome adversity.”
It has meant a new pathway for artist and apprentice mechanic Ashton Filmer.
“This has taken me places, I’m loving it. Nervous, but loving it,” he said.