Tag: outside in

Help bring Laila Kassab’s work from Gaza to the UK
Arts charity Outside In need your help to bring the work of Palestinian artist Laila Kassab from Gaza to the UK.

Laila Kassab, Mayhem of the Senses

Laila Kassab is a self-taught Palestinian artist based in Gaza who creates beautifully colourful artworks reflecting her life experiences. Alongside fellow artist Greg Bromley, Laila has been awarded a co-commission from Pallant House Gallery and Outside In, to exhibit her artwork in the UK.

“While a woman like me is denied the freedom to travel, my defiance is symbolised by having my paintings exiting Gaza.” – Laila Kassab

Laila Kassab

Laila’s story

Laila Kassab is a self-taught artist, creating beautifully colourful artworks reflecting her life experiences. For Laila, her life in Gaza did not provide her with what she needed to pursue a career as an artist. She grew up in a poor family in inadequate living conditions and felt that the events surrounding her led her to she calls ‘a dismal life’.

It was through art that she was able to transform her sadness into creativity. Using charcoal to draw directly onto the walls of her home, she was able to express her feelings inside and turn unhappiness into hope for herself and those around her.

Based in the Yibna Refugee Camp in Rafah, in the South of the Gaza Strip, Laila became part of the Islington Friends of Yibna, a small London-based group aiming to forge links with Palestinians in Laila’s region. In 2010, the group received a bundle of paintings from Laila, smuggled out of Gaza covered with only thin layers of protective material made of food packaging.

The group have included Laila’s artwork in small exhibitions including “Who can sleep in Gaza?” (2014) and “Art under Siege” (2017) but felt that the scale of their exhibitions were not doing justice to her exceptional artistic talent and that her work needed to be seen by a much wider audience.

Laila Kassab, Shackled Dream

“Scottie and I share the urge to express our art in the face of a life of poverty, personal hardship and painful memories of war…I feel that I am expressing myself on behalf of all the Palestinians lacking freedom to express their repressed feelings and their rejected dreams, and who are being forbidden from being with their families and friends.” –Laila Kassab

What will your money go towards?

This year, Outside In and Pallant House Gallery offered an exciting opportunity for artists to submit proposals in response to the work of Outsider Artist Scottie Wilson. The selected artist was then commissioned to create artwork that will be exhibited at Pallant House Gallery alongside the work of Scottie Wilson that is held in the Gallery’s collection.

Due the quality of proposals, it was decided that two artists should be commissioned. Greg Bromley was initially selected but with your help, Laila Kassab’s work will be exhibited alongside Scottie Wilson’s at Pallant House Gallery, from 13 June to 29 July. Your money will go towards:
- Materials for Laila to create new work
- Shipping Laila’s art work to the UK from Gaza
- Framing Laila’s work ready for exhibition
Laila Kassab, Final minutes of dialogue before killing of the bird

“We are thrilled to be working with Pallant House Gallery on this important commission. It will become a significant and landmark opportunity for the artists Outside In supports. The commission enables our artists to produce new work and present it in a prestigious Gallery, and to develop their confidence and reputation in the process.” – Marc Steene, Director of Outside In

Click here to find out more and to donate to the campaign
May 12, 2018
Conference: the Artist’s Voice

From 4th – 6th May 2018, Outside In is hosting the European Outsider Art Association (EOA) conference at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. This year’s conference focuses on ‘the Artist’s Voice,’ celebrating the work of excluded and non-traditional artists and sharing best practice in the field through a series of presentations, key note speeches, and workshops delivered by artists and practitioners.

Bobby Baker’s Diary Drawings, Mental Illness and Me, 1997 – 2008, Day 579 Cathedral of the Mind. Image Andrew Whittuck, 2009

The keynote speech to open the conference will be delivered by multi-disciplinary British artist Bobby Baker, and panel discussions during the conference will focus on ‘supporting the artist’s voice’ and ‘exhibiting the artist’s voice.’ Presenters at the conference include the Living Museum (the Netherlands), Out By Art (Sweden), Venture Arts (UK), Joy of Sound (UK) and Look Kloser (UK). Panellists will include Garvald Artists (Scotland), Headway East London (UK), Arts Project Australia (Australia), Blue Circus (Finland), Creahm/MadMusee (Belgium), and Creative Minds (UK). In addition to all of this, there are dedicated slots for artist presentations that will be happening throughout the conference.

There will also be an opportunity to find out more about the work of Outside In through presentations from director Marc Steene, and by taking part in creative workshops and tours led by Outside In artists. The conference will run alongside a new exhibition of work by renowned outsider artist Scottie Wilson at Pallant House Gallery, which in turn will be accompanied by a special commissioned work by an Outside In artist in response to Wilson’s practice.

In the run up to the conference (2^nd and 3^rd May), you can join a VIP programme of activities that will include trips to Bethlem Museum of the Mind, ActionSpace, an opening of an Outside In exhibition at Long and Ryle Gallery, an outsider environment in Brighton, and a tour of a renowned collection of modern British and outsider art.

For more information and a full programme of events, please click here.

Featured image: a Blue Circus artist at work

February 14, 2018
Radical Craft: Alternative Ways of Making

A new exhibition organised by Outside In and Craftspace is launching at Pallant House Gallery on 12 March 2016, illustrating the different and more alternative ways material and craft techniques can be utilised by artists and makers. ‘Radical Craft: Alternative Ways of Making’ will showcase work by historically renowned artists associated with the Outsider Art field alongside contemporary self-taught artists who see themselves as facing barriers to the art world; 21 of whom have been selected through an open submission process.

Aradne, The Gathering

Outside In, a project based at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (UK), that supports artists who see themselves as facing barriers to the art world for reasons including health, disability, social circumstance or isolation, facilitated the open submission section of the exhibition, calling on the 2,000 UK-based artists with online galleries on their website to submit their craft based work for possible inclusion in the show. There were over 200 submissions, and the final works were selected by a panel including textile artist Alice Kettle; artist and Outside In Award Winner Phil Bard; Laura Hamilton, Co-Curator of ‘Radical Craft’; Katy Norris, Curator at Pallant House Gallery; and Deirdre Figueiredo, Director of Craftspace.

The incredibly diverse work by UK artists will sit alongside pieces by artists of international renown from Asia, North America and Europe. The artists in this section of the exhibition include Dalton Ghetti, whose intricate pencil-graphite carvings are inspired by what he experiences on a day-to-day basis, and Julia Krause-Harder, who creates gigantic dinosaurs in mixed media.

Julia Krause-Harder, Stegosaurus, Image courtesy of Atelier Goldstein

What ties the work in this exhibition together is the radical missions and processes that underlie each creation. These include intuitive responses to textiles; autobiographical responses to the natural or urban environment; and folkloric or surreal perceptions of the world. The exhibition’s aims lie most significantly in wanting to break down barriers. These barriers are two-fold. Firstly, there is a want to challenge preconceptions surrounding who can be considered an artist and what can be considered art – does someone need to have been to art school? Do they need to have exhibited in a high profile venue? – and secondly, the different but related question of why craft is often considered a ‘lesser’ form of art. Although the latter – and in many ways the former – are not directly answered within the show, the inclusion of both untrained artists and craft works within a nationally renowned modern British art gallery leaves some pause for thought.

The exhibition will reveal not just who makes radical craft, but why they do, what they are inspired by, and ultimately, what the finished pieces – tied up as they are in the hopes, dreams and experiences of each maker – look like aesthetically.

Beth Hopkins, Found Object Figure

There are works in the exhibition which literally take this idea of being tied up in and with the history and context of the maker. In Nnena Kalu’s work, wound and bound bodies emerge as she builds and layers material upon material. Somewhat aesthetically similar, Judith Scott starts with an object hidden deep within the wraps and binds of her 3D sculptures. She repetitively hides and covers, whereas Kalu keeps building and building. Michael Smith’s customised jeans embody another form of wrapping. In his work, Smith alters something that already exists (in this case clothing), making his mark with masking tape, in the process creating the appearance of mythical creatures and new human-esque characters.

From the above, you can see that textiles and fabric-based work will make up a large chunk of the show. In addition to the wrapping and winding of Kalu, Scott and Smith, there will be the machine embroidered web-like worlds of UK-based Aradne, and the impressive woven birch bark clothing of Finland’s Erkki Pekkarinen. Other materials and processes utilised in a radical way within the exhibition are Horace Lindezey’s wire drawings of the seven suits he owns for special occasions, and the found objects and discarded electrical gadgets that are given a new lease of life by Beth Hopkins.

Erkki Pekkarinen, Photograph of the artist wearing woven birch bark suit, Image courtesy of Veli Grano

The exhibition is going to be key in the field, both in its attempt to raise the profile of artists working outside of the mainstream, and in its bold and courageous move to highlight the importance of craft within the art world. Much of work in the exhibition is primarily a form of communication; it is how the artist is most able to convey their unique messages, emotions and perspectives. With this end, craft enables the maker to create something that is wholly sincere. Working directly with the material; pulling, sewing, sticking, moulding, touching, feeling, their product is unavoidably connected to their physical being.

Excitingly, the work in ‘Radical Craft: Alternative Ways of Making’ is the aesthetic and tangible result of unheard voices, radical imaginations, and – perhaps most poignantly – incredible creativity that, until now, has been overlooked by much of the art world.

The exhibition is at Pallant House Gallery from 12 March – 12 June 2016, before touring around the UK. For more information, please click here.

Featured Image: Nnena Kalu with one of her bound sculptures

March 2, 2016
Daniel and Rodney: two perspectives on geometric form

This month sees the opening of an Outside In exhibition in collaboration with Bethlem Gallery. Outside In: Bethlem will showcase the work of Daniel and Rodney, who have refined yet differing perspectives on geometric form. The exhibition will run from 19 August – 11 September at Bethlem Gallery, which is situated within the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Beckenham, Kent.

Daniel and Rodney were selected for the exhibition by Simon Martin, Artistic Director of Pallant House Gallery, who was drawn to the idea of two artists using drawing within their work, but to different ends. Both Daniel and Rodney use linear marks to create sophisticated images, but whilst Daniel builds up complex mandala-like structures, Rodney pares back all detail to the simplest of forms.

Rodney, Untitled

Daniel’s Metatron works form a series of drawings that all use geometric shapes, lines and vivid colour. With a tightly developed methodology for constructing structures and composing forms, Daniel has created a strong visual identity for his work. “It takes me a couple of months to do one piece, as I do it bit by bit in my own time and space,” Daniel says. “You can always find a face in my drawings that for me represents Archangel Metatron, accompanied by the third eye.”

Daniel, Metatronic Circuit 2

Simon says of Daniel’s work: “It has a remarkable precision and control, and yet it seems imaginatively free. The abstract forms and colours in his drawings and paintings seem to exist without reference to the physical world and they remind us that the artist can be like a shaman to the unconscious and a deeper spirituality.”

Rodney, Jamaican Head

Similar in their use of geometric forms to Daniel’s pieces, the beautifully precise and simple forms of Rodney’s work come from his studies of the world around him and include people, interiors, guns, stereos, boxes and locks. His sophisticated process of distilling complex forms down to something more refined and elegant is carried out quietly and without any formal training. “Rodney’s drawings have a powerful simplicity,” says Simon. “He seems to distill the physical world down to the simplest scaffold of linear forms.”

Daniel, Pink Metatronic Circuit 3

Outside In and Bethlem Gallery both have the same ethos when it comes to promoting work by artists facing barriers to the mainstream art world, and this exhibition will combine these efforts for the second time, resulting in a high-quality show with a focus on geometric forms created in two unique styles.

For more information on the exhibition, please click here.

August 6, 2015
Outside In: Intuitive Visions

Featured Image: Martin Phillimore, All the Fun at the Fair

Two new exhibitions opening in Brighton this weekend illustrate the fantastic work being created by artists represented on the Outside In website. Both exhibitions are taking place during May – famously ‘Brighton Festival’ month. One is in partnership with HOUSE Festival 2015; the visual arts arm of Brighton Festival, and the other in collaboration with Brighton’s Artists Open Houses, another Festival related endeavour which sees artists of Brighton and Hove throw open the front doors of their homes.

‘Intuitive Visions: Shifting the Margins’

‘Intuitive Visions: Shifting the Margins’, in collaboration with HOUSE 2015, will take place at Phoenix Brighton from 3 – 31 May, showcasing the work of nine Outside In artists: Aradne, Blair McCormick, John Ackhurst, Jonathan Kenneth William Pettitt, Luc Raesmith, Martin Phillimore, Michelle Roberts, Paul Bellingham and Sally Ward. Curated by Katy Norris, curator at Pallant House Gallery, the exhibition includes a host of intuitive works, including Paul Bellingham’s ‘blind drawings’, which he creates by closing his eyes and drawing a head, before opening his eyes and filling any extraneous space with colour.

Paul Bellingham, Comfort Comes

The utilisation of found objects and materials is common in the show, with Luc Raesmith working quickly and intuitively with available recycled and found materials: “I am a colour obsessive, as well as a ‘magpie’ for images, textiles and metals, plus beach and street plastic flotsam.” Similarly, Sally Ward will often pick up materials from charity shops; fabrics that already have a history of their own, before stamping, spraying and sewing them to give them a new lease of life.

Colour is abundant in the exhibition, with the likes of Jonathan Kenneth William Pettitt’s ‘Love Tears’ and ‘Pee Thrips,’ and Martin Phillimore’s untitled doodles. Similarly, Michelle Roberts’ colourful and complex worlds have a distinct logic and meaning that connect to her own life. Working methodically across each canvas, Michelle starts by building layers of patterns, working from left to right and top to bottom, before selectively filling the shapes with colour.

Jonathan Kenneth William Pettitt, Love Tears

The exhibition is a culmination of a burgeoning relationship between Outside In and HOUSE 2015 – something that will undoubtedly benefit both the public and the two organisations by offering new audiences the opportunity to engage with exciting contemporary work.

Click here for more information on ‘Intuitive Visions: Shifting the Margins.’

‘Being Creative is Good For You!’

‘Being Creative is Good For You!’ sees Outside In and The Wellbeing Gallery – based at Brighton Health and Wellbeing Centre – collaborate for the second time as part of Brighton’s Artists Open Houses. Showcasing work by four Outside In artists: Aradne, Annika Malmqvist, Anthony Stevens and Valerie Potter, the exhibition aims to highlight how these four artists have discovered their own personal fabric-based techniques to channel their creativity and improve their wellbeing.

Aradne, Aureola 3

From Aradne’s technique of utilising a sewing machine as a drawing implement, to Anthony Stevens’ textiles imbued with deep, symbolic meanings, this exhibition pivots around the notion that using your hands and creating can be incredibly beneficial to health and wellbeing. Anthony says: “To create is one of the fundamental experiences of being human. It feels so much more invigorating to create from the nuts and bolts of our own lives, than to just stagnate and consume what is made available to us.”

Anthony Stevens, Culture Vulture

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of related events, including an interactive, creative workshop led by artist and curator Jude Hart, as well as mini-workshops led by exhibiting artists Aradne and Anthony Stevens. In these mini-workshops, participants will have the chance to learn a new technique or simply enjoy being creative.

Click here for more information on ‘Being Creative is Good For You!’

About Outside In

Founded by Pallant House Gallery in 2006, Outside In provides a platform for those who define themselves as facing barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance or isolation. The goal of the project is to create a fairer art world which rejects traditional values and institutional judgements about whose work can and should be displayed.

www.outsidein.org.uk

April 28, 2015
Manuel Bonifacio: My Imaginary Cave

Above image: Manuel Bonifacio, Aeroplanes and Spades

On 29 April, Pallant House Gallery welcomed a new exhibition showcasing the work of Manuel Bonifacio; one of six Outside In 2012 Award Winners. The exhibition is a colourful array of Bonifacio’s imaginative characters and creatures, and is definitely a must-see if you’re down on the south coast in the next month.

Born in December 1947 near Lisbon, Portugal, Bonifacio pursued his interest in drawing and pottery after dropping out of school at the age of eight. His most recent collection of work, which features the award winning ‘Mermaid’ and a selection of pottery, is inspired by his passion for archaeology and animals. Bonifacio paints, draws, sculpts and makes at ArtVenture – a creative day centre for adults with learning difficulties – for four hours every Wednesday and Friday. Since his Award win, Bonifacio has exhibited in Birmingham and London and now has work in collections in Switzerland and New York. In recognition of Bonifacio’s talent, an Outsider Art collector will be travelling over from Switzerland to attend this much-anticipated exhibition.

Manuel Bonifacio, Jungle Animal

“Manuel’s thing at the moment is mermaids, but he loves motorbikes,” his niece says. “He likes to do things his own way; he thinks ‘I’m the artist and I know what I’m doing’!” Bonifacio’s mermaids (one of which one him the Award in 2012) have an interesting narrative all of their own. “They live in Lisbon, but they go all over the world,” says Bonifacio. Lisbon is in fact populated with several mermaid statues, including eight in the large fountains in Rossio Square. Bonifacio adds: “All the children used to say ‘Look, there she is – the mermaid!’ She waves to the people, and then goes under water again when the boats pass.”

At a young age, Bonifacio joined the fire brigade as a volunteer and his life’s ambition was to be in the army. Many of his works reflect his passion for army transportation, depicting helicopters, aeroplanes, motorbikes and boats. His work is also inspired by politics and everything he sees on television, but most of it comes straight from his colourful imagination. His sister describes the huge variety of subject matter he depicts: “The birth of Jesus, the circus, the Pope, the Queen, Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron, dancers, Christmas-inspired pieces, motorcycles, musicians, buskers, birds, divers, fish, helicopters, dogs, horses, wolves, mermaids, and always people. There are faces in most of his work.”

Manuel Bonifacio, Motorbike and Man

Keen to explore and take on a challenge, Bonifacio has previously experimented with printmaking and wood carving and he occasionally dabbles in watercolours and oils. His portfolio also includes an array of distinctive ceramic mugs, vessels and faces. Walking from Cobham to Kingston regularly – a 20 minute drive – Bonifacio notes down road names, makes sketches and absorbs nature and life, which are ever present in his work. One of his figures was inspired by a statue on a roundabout in his hometown, but more generally, the characters he so vividly creates come straight from his mind. There is a sense that he could conjure anything; a donkey, a bullfighter, or various forms of transport.

Bonifacio’s sister, Maria Odone, says: “Manuel’s work has been a valuable asset to everyone who knows him as it is also a way he likes to communicate. His ideas and perception of what is going on around him both locally and nationally are very unique. His ambition as an artist is to travel around the world, finding places and people that will inspire him.”

Manuel Bonifacio, Ball Games

Roger Cardinal, who coined the term Outsider Art in 1972 as the English equivalent of Jean Dubuffet’s Art Brut, was one of the Outside In: National judges. He speaks of the moment he first saw Bonifacio’s Mermaid at the Gallery: “It struck me as entirely familiar and made me think of the Frenchman Guillaume Pujolle, an early star of Art Brut whose lyrical images I cherish. This brief and decisive moment established Bonifacio as my top choice. The Mermaid is a perfect reality for him [Bonifacio]. I see her arms and elongated fingers as enacting the motions of swimming, although she can also be said to be flying. Hence she is capable of traversing earth, sea and air, and becomes and emblem of the artist’s unfettered imagination.”

Entry to Manuel Bonifacio: My Imaginary Cave is free. The exhibition continues in the Studio at Pallant House Gallery until 1 June 2014.

To see more of Manuel’s work, click here.

April 29, 2014
Kate Bradbury: Squalls and Murmurations

Open until 1 December 2013 at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Kate Bradbury: Squalls and Murmurations is the second exhibition in a series celebrating the Six Award Winners of Outside In: National 2012, a triennial competition for artists from the margins.

Art Historian Roger Cardinal, performance artist Bobby Baker and ex-Director of Pallant House Gallery, Stefan van Raay, chose Kate Bradbury as one of six Outside In Award Winners as part of the 2012 National exhibition, for which one of the prizes was a solo exhibition in the Studio. Cardinal said of the competition and the subsequent winners: “It is about showing the public that ordinary people without training can produce great work. Art can happen anywhere in all sorts of places.”

Bradbury’s art career began some years ago in a run-down house in North London, where she started to intuitively make pictures and sculptures from abandoned belongings. Unearthing a role of thin Chinese paper and a well of black ink, an unforeseen tide of repetitive image and pattern-making promptly began. Bradbury also created sculptures from salvaged litter found in the tall, crumbling house.

This obsession with found objects can perhaps be traced back to Bradbury’s childhood, where some family friends who were archaeologists would take her off into caves where she witnessed cave paintings with crude handprints and began finding and collecting things. Now, Bradbury collects material on her way to work, or on her way home from work – whatever she can find and wherever she can find it.

Her suitcase people – the doctor, the artist, and Railroad Jim – all have their own personalities, each with a story inside their box-bodies. New additions to Bradbury’s family of sculptures are her ‘goat’ creatures. Constructed from the bristle-end of brushes, severed musical instruments and human faces, they came to life after Bradbury happened upon the ‘disembodied goat heads’ at her local car boot sale. Not wanting to separate a few goats from the herd, Bradbury took the lot before restoring them: “I have gifted them legs and bodies and I hope that one day soon I will have identified and practised the Holler that will alert a distant herdsman to their whereabouts, so that they may return to their native hills.”

To complement her trademark sculptures, the exhibition also includes some of Bradbury’s trademark ink drawings. It was one of these fantastical black and white worlds; The ones that I’ve been saving to make a feather bed, for which Bradbury was granted Outside In: Award Winner status. Bradbury says of her contrasting practices (sculpture and ink): “Both of these have become passions that fill both my waking and sleeping hours with ink-stains and splinters.”

It is this diverse creativity that gives the exhibition its name. Bradbury explains: “A squall is a storm and that suited the swirly patterns in my drawings. The monoprints often have a stormy sky and a lot of the sculptures are crude and brutal in texture. Murmuration is playing on the word murmur, a much quieter space like the fine lines and delicate paper that I draw with. So it’s loud and quiet and reflects both sides of my work.”

With no formal art education, Bradbury is inspired by known – Klee, Miro, Franz Kline – and unknown artists, stage sets, archaeology, visions, inventions, and by music and song. She thinks about ideas for her work whilst at her day job – in a sandwich shop – where she has the space to go to a different place in her head. She doesn’t make work to please an audience; she makes it because it needs to be made. She explains: “I get a picture of something in my head and then need to make it, to offload it and then I can think about something else. I get obsessed with an idea and try to see it through. I’d love to get a studio and be able to make some bigger or noisier work and I like the idea of making a stage set, working with animation and just to keep finding inspiration.”

Kate Bradbury, The Artist

Kate Bradbury, Detail of the Dust Gatherer

Kate Bradbury, Detail of Railroad Jim

Kate Bradbury, Angel

Kate Bradbury, Detail of Where Have all the Birdsongs Gone

Outside In was set up by Pallant House Gallery in 2006 to provide opportunities for artists with a desire to create who see themselves as facing a barrier to the art world. The project’s main vehicle is a triennial open art exhibition which was first held in 2007 and featured 100 artists from across Sussex. By 2012, the project had gone national, engaging more than 1,500 artists and 13,000 audience members.

Kate Bradbury: Squalls and Murmurations will be on in the Studio at Pallant House Gallery until 1 December 2013. Entry is free. Click here for more information.

Outside In website

November 11, 2013
Bold Vision: Outsiders in Black and White

Above Image: Kate Bradbury, ‘Underground’

From 7-14 July a collaborative exhibition between Julian Hartnoll Gallery and Outside In will showcase the work of 12 artists from the margins. From intuitive artists to self-taught visionaries, ‘Bold Vision’ provides a unique insight into the black and white world of these artists.

Seven Outside In artists will have their work shown alongside five Outsider Artists’ works at Julian Hartnoll Gallery. Outside In works with artists who face barriers to the art world for reasons including health, disability and social circumstance.

The artists in the exhibition create for numerous different reasons, one of the most common being as a release or a way of finding balance. Albert’s pen and pencil drawings of imagined buildings act as a form of meditation for the artist, a release from the boredom and tedium of hospital life, whilst Chris Neate’s automatic ink doodles help him maintain a calm stability. Albert says of his work: “I start with a vision in my mind and it blossoms from there … I imagine the building being constructed in brick and brought to life.”

Similarly, Roy fights his low moments by drawing heads and faces, houses and fidgety lines in an effort to describe elements of his past, or his visions for the future.

Roy, ‘Shadow’
Roy, ‘Caveman’

Intricately designed faces and the human figure make reoccurring appearances throughout the show. A fascination with the female form inspires Nigel Kingsbury to create drawings with a frequently mysterious and eerie quality, although his idolisation of the figure in such a rare and carefully observed manner is far removed from contemporary issues of gender stereotyping.

Both Valerie Potter and Aradne use embroidery techniques to, in the case of Aradne, create figures, birds, insects, flowers and text, which all come together in her web-like structures, and in the case of Potter, keep herself sane.

Kate Bradbury’s intricate black and white creations began when the artist unearthed rolls of Chinese paper and a well of black ink during time spent in a run-down house in London. The discovery of this new medium followed on from her intuitive creation of pictures and assemblages from abandoned belongings, leading to a tidal rhythmic pattern and repetitive form of image making.

This idea of repetition crops up regularly throughout the exhibition, alongside strong compulsion, a desirable lack of intention and incredible imagination. Ted Gordon, one of the five Outsider Artists, is a self-taught draughtsman whose spontaneous, unmonitored creation enables the mind to give free rein to the hand. He becomes, as described by his biographer, Roger Cardinal, absorbed by his image-making, a “perpetual motion machine, an instrument of what the Surrealists called ‘automatism’.”

Similarly, British Outsider Artist Nick Blinko draws intensely dense and detailed compositions of faces, figures and obsessive patterns. His art conjures a nightmarish, anxiety-ridden world where inner demons might be exorcised through repetitive graphic marks. Reminiscent of the macabre images of Goya or James Ensor, Blinko creates a personal iconography that evokes the magic and menace of rich imagination.

Aradne, ‘Communion’

The form and content of the work is greatly varied, from Kingsbury’s loosely drawn female figures and Aradne’s hand and machine embroidered web structures to ‘time traveller’ George Widener’s bold compositions of dates and imagery and Ben Wilson’s black and white prints.

Both Widener and Wilson often use found objects as their source of inspiration; with Wilson’s distaste for industrial waste, cars and rubbish eventually turning into an art form. Widener, a calendar savant, or ‘lightning calendar calculator’, creates mixed-media works on found paper, or layers of tea-stained napkins, that give aesthetic, visual form to complex calculations based on dates and historical events.

Chris Neate, ‘Untitled’

The exhibition will run from 7 – 14 July at Julian Hartnoll Gallery, 37 Duke Street, St. James’, London, SW1Y 6DF. Call 07973 932271 for more information. Opening tims are 10am – 2.30pm Monday – Friday and 11am – 5pm on Saturday. Visits can be arranged by appointment outside of these times.

June 30, 2013
Anthony Stevens

Anthony Stevens is a self-taught artist whose work is inspired by life experience. His work could be said to be a narrative that he uses to process previous traumatic life events and the after-effects of these. He works predominantly in fabric and hand stitching, or marker pens and card and has been avidly creating for the past three years; however, the urge to create has visibly strengthened in the last four to five months.

Although Anthony’s work tends to be about externalising inner dynamics, he quite often uses art alongside his Buddhist practise to understand and re-frame his life experiences so that he is able to use them as a source of value and growth. He says of his recent practice: “It feels like I am entering a new phase of life, one that is self-created and which I am happy to step into..I feel very much alive.”

Below, Anthony talks through some of his more recent work.

Anthony Stevens, ‘Things are getting better’

“‘Things are getting better” is about my (or humanities) habit of listening to all of those negative inner voices that stop us enjoying the freedom and goodness inherent in each moment.”

Anthony Stevens, ‘There aint no flys in the chicken bone jar’

“This piece is done in marker peens and oil pastels and was inspired by a memory I had. It is my version of ‘ignoring the elephant in the room’ syndrome.”

Anthony Stevens, ‘Catholic chanting to Gohonzon’

Anthony Stevens, ‘Catholic chanting to Gohonzon’

Anthony Stevens, ‘Catholic chanting to Gohonzon’

“The series entitled ‘Catholic chanting to Gohonzon’ is heavily influenced by my Buddhist practise and represent how the past and things that lay hidden in the mind can interfere with us being able to see how things ‘really are’.”

Anthony Stevens, ‘Ambivalence Towards the Mother’

“This piece is about a period in my life when I was trying to gain control over myself and the general chaos of my life by engaging in disordered eating. Living with this part of the psyche in control is like living with a dictator whose will must be obeyed at all costs! Ambivalence towards the mother figure is often regarded in Psychoanalysis as a major contributory factor in disordered eating, hence the title.”

Anthony Stevens, ‘Untitled’

“This work is about psychosis and how the voices that I thought were God actually came from a far more ‘earthly’ place. This is about me examining the origins of delusion and the role psychosis has in trying to tell a valuable story, and understanding its language. I used marker pen and card to create this.”

Anthony Stevens, ‘Making soup’

“‘Making soup’ is about searching within for all the things we need to make our lives rich and nourishing. The different fabrics used represent differing aspects and influence from personal and social culture (the pink and yellow is about punk ‘DIY’ culture, and the stripes represent duality, sleep/waking, life and death.”

Click here to see more of Anthony’s work

Click here for information on Anthony Steven’s exhibition ‘Making Soup’ at Prick Your Finger, London (until 20 August 2014)

May 23, 2013
What’s On: Spring/Summer 2013

Image above: Impact Art Fair 2011

Below you will find some excellent and inspiring exhibitions that are taking place (mainly in the UK – sorry!) this spring and summer. From the Wellcome Collection to the Impact Art Fair; a dedicated art fair showcasing work by those facing barriers to the art world due to mental health reasons, disability, substance misuse or other social circumstances, there is bound to be something for everyone. I’m going to try and keep doing these ‘What’s On’ posts regularly to keep you all updated – and as 2013 seems to be a big year for the outsider art world! *(Click on the titles of the exhibitions to visit the webpage)*

Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan
Until 30 June 2013

This exhibition showcases more than 300 works for the first major display of Japanese Outsider Art in the UK. With 46 exceptionally talent artists represented; all of whom are residents and day visitors at social welfare institutions in Japan, this exhibition consists of an excitingly diverse range of ceramics, textiles, paintings, sculpture and drawing.

Toshiko Yamanishi, ‘Mother’
Image from http://www.wellcomecollection.org

The Gravy Train and Roads to Recovery
Until 22 June 2013

This exhibition at The Conference Centre presents artwork from Service Users at the Margarete Centre and highlights equality, opportunity and equal access to society as treatments for substance misuse. Alongside work by participants of the Margarete Centre are works by upcoming visionary artist Kate Bradbury.

Image from ‘The Gravy Train and Roads to Recovery’ Facebook Page

Outside In: On Tour
Until 3 January 2014

This touring exhibition consists of the work of 20 artists facing barriers to the art world selected through an open national competition. The tour features the six Award Winners from the Outside In: National exhibition: Kate Bradbury, Manuel Bonifacio, Matthew Sergison-Main, Michelle Roberts, Nigel Kingsbury and Phil Baird.

The four venues the exhibition will be touring to are: The Museum of East Anglian Life, Royal Brompton Hospital, Salisbury Arts Centre and The Public.

Regina Lafay, ‘Convert’
Image from www.outsidein.org.uk

Outside In: Regional

On the back of the success of Outside In: National, the work of Outside In artists will be popping up all over the country in 2013 – from The Museum of Somerset in the South West and Hastings Museum and Art Gallery in the South East right up to Perth Museum and Art Gallery in Scotland, and everywhere in between. For information on all of the dates and venues, visit Outside In’s website.

I Ar You at Large Glass Gallery
Until 24 May 2013

I Ar You: Portraits by Self-Taught American Artists features an intimate selection of important artists from the Deep South and beyond, presenting self-portraits and anonymous figures alongside images of celebrities, presidents and cowboys.

Image from http://www.largeglass.co.uk

The Alternative Guide to the Universe at the Hayward Gallery
11 June – 26 August 2013

An exhibition surveying the work of individuals who create alternatives in art, science and architecture. Focusing on self-taught practitioners whose work is generally produced outside of established channels and official institutions, The Alternative Guide to the Universe features a range of contributors from fringe physicists to the inventors of new languages, from artists who map cities of the future to others who design imaginary technologies.

The Impact Art Fair at Block 336, Brixton
26 – 28 July 2013

This will be the second Impact Art Fair organised by Creative Future, which showcases work by highly talented artists whose access to the mainstream is limited by mental health issues, disability, chronic ill health or social circumstance.

*N.B. If you are an artist, you can still enter work for selection for the Impact Art Fair up until 23 April 2013.

Heidi Aldous
Image from www.impact-art-fair.org.uk

“Great and Mighty Things”: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection at The Philadephia Museum of Art
Until 9 June 2013

In this innovative exhibition, the power of self-taught artistic talent, the drive of the human spirit to create, and the wonders of highly original inner worlds are revealed. This show surprises and challenges museum goers, forces examination of the conventional definition of the word ‘artist’, and shows that good art is good art regardless of the maker’s resume.

Gods, Devils and Dreams by Peter Harry Lewis White at Bethlem Gallery
Until 17 May 2013

This is an exhibition of large-scale paintings and detailed pencil drawings by Peter White. His work depicts visions and dreamscapes that take the viewer on a journey into abstracted landscapes, figures and happenings. “My exhibition reflects my experiences and my creations. There are some windows into my memory and mind, but the rest is just colour and form.”

Peter White
Image from www.bethlemgallery.com

Steve Wright’s House of Dreams
Museum open days: 11 May, 8 June, 6 July, 3 August and 7 September 2013

This amazing world of discarded objects has been created by artist Stephen Wright, who uses everyday objects to create mosaics: milk bottle tops, broken dolls, crockery and the rich pickings of car boot sales. The museum is open by appointment, but there are open days on 11 May, 8 June, 6 July, 3 August and 7 September 2013.

Stephen Wright’s House of Dreams
Image from www.stephenwrightartist.co.uk

To keep up to date with other goings-on in the ‘outsider art’ world, follow me on Twitter: @kd_outsiderart

April 17, 2013