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Alyssa (Lyssa) Deabenderfer

@lyssagal

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I don't know what to say about the other day.

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I am Alyssa Deabenderfer. I live with duane syndrome which means my relationship with vision, perception, and movement is different from what many take for granted. My eyes don’t always work together the way they’re expected to, there’s a pull, a tension, a limit that others don’t see but I feel constantly. This neurological difference affects how I observe, process, and express.

In my art, you’ll often see visual echoes, like in this portrait where my face is repeated in a ghostly rhythm across the canvas. It’s not just a stylistic choice; it’s a reflection of how I experience my surroundings. My visual world is never entirely static. There’s a dissonance in alignment, a kind of spatial negotiation that I translate through layered imagery, soft blurs, and duplicated forms.

I work with color in extremes, vivid purples, saturated pinks, almost electric blues, because there’s an emotional intensity in the way I perceive things. When my eyes struggle to coordinate, there’s an internal pressure, a sensory overload that I try to externalize through bold palettes and surreal contrasts. These colors aren’t just visual; they’re visceral.

My work is not about creating perfect illusions of reality. It’s about translating my lived truth into something visual, emotional, and immediate. With Duane syndrome, I’ve learned to see differently, and through my art, I invite others to do the same.

Finally, my work belongs to a broader artistic movement that resists “normalcy”, not just in bodies, but in time, space, perception, and narrative. Disability aesthetics teaches us to rethink what is “normal” in how we see, move, and create. My portraits don’t apologize for difference, it insists on it. In that insistence, I’m not seeking to be fixed or explained. I’m asking to be seen, on my own terms.

#duanesyndrome #rarediseases #artvlog #emergingartist by @lyssagal

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5 months ago

You asked when I graduated.
Expecting a few years.

Not decades.

I believe it was to make up for the years, life was ripped away from me.

I wasn't expected to last a day.
Yet every moment, I prove the universe wrong.

(ha-ha! it says ai, but it doesn't detect ai in my other posts? 😂👏)
_
#artistlife #gothlife #selfportrait by @lyssagal

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a month ago

I used to fall into a pit of despair.
It would consume me entirely.
People wanted me to fail.
People enjoyed seeing me suffer.

It was like their little treat of the day.
Their cup of tea.
They got off on it.

I won’t give that power anymore.
You never deserved my smile.
You never deserved my gentleness.
You thought it was weakness.

Keep thinking that.
Indefinitely.

Every moment you sit in silence,
remember:
you chose it.

You chose manipulation
instead of honesty.
You chose greed
instead of liberation.

You could have stopped it.
But you didn’t.

I don’t owe you anything.
Not my time.
Not my space.
Not my warmth.
Certainly not my truth.

Every time I open my mouth,
it means nothing to you.

So here is that space.
That emptiness.
That silence.

Just for you. by @lyssagal

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5 months ago

I almost said it.

It was right there, resting just behind my teeth. A sentence. A truth. Something I’ve never said out loud, not even to myself, not completely. And for a moment, I thought — maybe this time.

My hand lifted before I realized it had moved, fingers curling toward my mouth like they wanted to catch the words before they escaped. Or maybe hold them in place. It’s hard to know anymore what’s protection and what’s fear. The line between the two has gotten blurry.

You’re looking at me now. I can feel it. I don’t know what you see — if you see someone fragile or strong. If you notice the thorns wrapped around my arm, or if you only see the color. I used to think if I was bright enough, no one would look too closely. I learned to wear light like camouflage.

But it’s there. The wound I don’t show you. The part of me I keep turned inward. I’ve tucked it behind the fabric of me, wrapped it in softness and silence. Not because I want to hide — I just don’t know if the world will hold me gently when I’m honest.

There’s a weight that builds in the body when you stop yourself from speaking too many times. It doesn’t go away. It settles in your shoulders, in your hands. My hands remember every word I swallowed. They stretch longer now, thinner, more careful. As if they’re still trying to reach for something — or maybe someone.

I’m not sure what I was going to say, exactly. Maybe “I’m not okay.” Maybe “Please stay.” Maybe something messier — something truer. But I didn’t. I closed my mouth. I smiled instead, or something close to it. It’s easier that way. Safer.

But please know this: I almost said it. I was right there, trembling on the edge of honesty. And that has to count for something.

Maybe next time, I’ll let it come.

Maybe next time, I’ll let you hear it. by @lyssagal

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2 years ago

Watercolor on mixed media paper.
14" x 17"
___
Reference photo by @sammanns by @lyssagal

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9 years ago

Alcholic marker.
circa 2018. by @lyssagal

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7 years ago

I have done numerous drawings of Horus. This is the first painting of him. He flew over to it and was admiring it. Including pecking at it and singing 💓🥰

Check out my other works @lyssagal taken in Houston, Texas by @lyssagal

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a year ago

My name is Alyssa Deabenderfer, this is my story with Duane Syndrome. A rare eye movement condition, and my life as an artist.
It takes a lot of vulnerability to talk about this subject, but I want to document my experience living with Duane Syndrome while making art.

I was born with Duane Syndrome. It changes how my eyes move. TL;DR: one of my eyes doesn't move outward.

I get migraines easily, and I get double vision looking left. Taking photos with others used to be super embarrassing. If I don't position my head in a specific way every day, people ask me what is wrong with me. In reality, it is just me being me, naturally.

Because of this, people may see me in a certain way. But I see the world in my own way, too.

I have been ridiculed most of my life because of it. This is me reclaiming my natural beauty.

When I draw, I put my feelings on the paper. My art is a testament to living differently—not less, not broken, just different.

I am making these art journals for people who are like me, so they feel less alone.

_
The first page is drawing of cartoon faces with the eyes representing Duane Syndrome. They have the eyes all crossed eyed, some are smiling claiming it, some are smiling not sure. There are about 10+ faces looking around wondering what the world expects of them.
__
The second is a journal entry I write to myself.
With duane syndrome, i lived a very happy baby life.
My mom and dad loved me.
My dad would make me practice eye movement exercises with my eyes.
School was REALLY hard learning to read. I would see double vision, i tell the teachers I can't read. The vision was so bad, I would cry a lot, through my tears. I persisted. I cry everyday, I wake up and ask God why God made (me) this way. Ever.single.day. I would wake up and wonder why I was this way. I don't know how old I was before I stopped caring. Maybe 17 years old. When I took my piercing out. My life was miserable. July 2026.
Sticky note from my partner:
I'm sorry for anyone who made you feel as if you weren't enough. You are enough <3 by @lyssagal

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3 months ago

A little kid and a mom bought that shark cat painting behind my right shoulder, that day.
Angie Cook is my best artist friend. We set up together that day. It was super windy.
Circa 2012 taken in Houston, Texas by @lyssagal

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2 years ago

My friend Angie Cook, and I, painting live at the Art-Walk on Main in La Porte, TX. Angie Cook would prime these huge canvases for us to paint on at the art-walk.
We started out with just a some swirls on the canvas, it ended up being a tree by the water :)
Circa 2014 taken in La Porte, Texas by @lyssagal

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2 years ago

I grew up in a rural Pennsylvania town—about 500 people, surrounded by trees and quiet. My dad raised me and my three siblings on a single income. We didn’t have much. Paper didn’t come around often, so I learned to draw on anything I could find—old menus, junk mail, the back of receipts.

School wasn’t easy for me. I had learning disabilities that made me feel behind most of the time. But art? Art made sense. I spent hours watching the countryside, the way light moved across the trees, how shadows shifted across the living room. I wanted to capture it all.

One of my first real fascinations as an artist was something small but kind of magical—I couldn’t tell the difference between black and dark purple until I put them down on paper. That little surprise stuck with me. It made me realize that sometimes you don’t see things until you slow down enough to really look. That’s where my love for purple began.

Every holiday, my dad would buy me cheap art kits—the ones with markers that dried out too fast. I used every bit of them anyway. Art became my way of understanding the world, and myself.

I’m still learning. Still observing. Still chasing that feeling of discovering something small and beautiful hiding in plain sight.

#artiststory #selftaughtartist #learningdisabilities #purple💜 #smalltownartist #artjourney taken in Marion Center, Pennsylvania by @lyssagal

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2 years ago

She was always different, a little offbeat, as if she existed in a world slightly adjacent to the one everyone else occupied. While other children followed the expected patterns of play and conversation, she found herself tangled in unseen threads, struggling with tasks that seemed effortless to others. Her mind, a whirlwind of brilliance and chaos, refused to fit neatly into the molds set for her.

Words on a page danced before her eyes, twisting and turning into indecipherable patterns. Letters and numbers swirled and shifted, refusing to stay still. Sentences didn’t make sense anymore, slipping through her grasp like water. Grasping at ideas that once felt familiar, she found them dissolving before she could hold onto them. Lessons she had once known became distant echoes, fading when she needed them most. It wasn’t a lack of intelligence—far from it. It was as if her mind was wired in a way that the world hadn't been built to accommodate.

Movement wasn’t any easier. She tripped over air, her limbs often moving in ways she didn’t intend. Buttons, shoelaces, even holding a pencil required levels of concentration that left her exhausted. Where others danced through life with ease, she stumbled and faltered, constantly reminded that her body wouldn’t always obey her mind’s commands.

But within her was something extraordinary. A depth of perception, a way of seeing beauty in places no one else thought to look. She could hear music in silence, feel colors in ways that words couldn’t describe. Her world was richer, more intricate, woven with connections that others overlooked.

She found solace in the things that didn’t judge her—her art and animals. She would cradle a cat in her arms as if the two shared a secret language, a bond deeper than words. Animals never expected her to explain herself; they simply accepted her as she was. With a paintbrush in hand, she could translate the emotions trapped inside her, splashing them onto paper in a dance of colors and shapes that spoke where words failed her. by @lyssagal

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2 years ago