Huub Niessen, A Bit of Dutch Brilliance

The other day I received an e-mail with an attachment of many intriguing images. It was hard to select just a few to share. But the text was an easier decision. I am letting Huub Niessen tell you about himself and his journey in his own words.
"I have been a journalist for about twenty five years, but, unfortunately, when I was about 45 years old I got deep depressions, that took about ten years of my life. After that dark period I started studying Arabic, and began to draw more intensively than before. By the end of the sixties I had exhibitions in well known galleries in Amsterdam. And now I am 70 years old (born 4 Feb. 1943) and I like to show my tiny works in Amsterdam (Galerie Hamer) and Lyon (Galerie Dettinger Mayer). The Guislain Museum has bought 8 drawings and it is important for me to be in the collection of that museum." Niessen's work is also in the Musee-Creation Frances, which has a world class collection of artbrut and outsider art.
The stories told in each piece are intriguing and the characters are splendid. This is highly original work with a wide appeal to both collectors of non-mainstream as well as mainstream art. Enjoy!

A Sculptor Unequaled, Joe DeMarco

After a back injury, Derby, CT resident DeMarco left the field of masonry and became a self-taught sculptor. His first creations were mailbox people made from rims of trucks and cars. Birds of all sorts were his next focus and many a fine eagle or stork is posed on the shore of CT ponds and streams. Metal masks, musicians, carved heads, birdbaths, ballerinas, lovers, and life sized horses and moose became is oeuvre in later years. The creativity of this self-taught man always was a delight to behold. He was proficient in stone, metal, wood, and even concrete.

Joe's property was a junk man's treasure, filled to the brim with aging school busses, old farm trucks, recycled tools and car and motorcycle parts. All became fodder for his work. He kept several projects going at a time, and miraculously many became finished works of art. At times Joe would drive into NY city in a truck which had holes in the floorboards, iffy brakes, and jerry rigged supports holding his precious cargo. He had no compunction about pulling right up in front of the Museum of Modern Art, or the Met, depending on which had less police attention that day, and sell work off the back of his truck. More than once he had to continue on to posh areas like South Hampton to deliver sculpture to delighted buyers who happened to be passing by.

Small in stature, big in spirit, his memorial service drew hundreds of people during a fierce New England snowstorm. The reception, featuring a grouping of his metal and stone musicians, along with live music, celebrated a life not soon forgotten. His works can be seen in private collections throughout the country and at the Marrietta Museum of Art and Whimsy in Pensacola, Florida.

The Women of Troy

Tough, edgy, tender, allusive, challenging, ethereal. All these adjectives can describe the stunning works and alter egos of Canadian self-taught artist Troy Brooks. As a young man he found strength in these female forms, which emerged in his earliest drawings. They became a safe haven from school bullies. They have transformed into an army of conquerors as Troy enters his forties. After just two years of showing these oil paintings, Troy had become a full time artist, with strong sales in still tentative times for the art world. It's no wonder!

A Toronto paper wrote these words. "Blending mannerist elements of figurative pop art, surreal distortion and symbolism, Troy Brooks presents an elaborate pageantry of female characters observed in allegorical settings. These towering yet fragile women play out scenes that explore the fringes of an internal landscape; caught in moments where something transformative has or is about to happen."

Mark Ashton Vey: The Music Continues

Mark Vey paints trees. Trees are the living memory of his childhood in Scotland. They obviously have had a profound impact on him. Vey calls his style "Musicalism".
Vey says he plays on the canvas like a musician which makes the trees dance in the colors of his music and surrealist style.
"My musical success is the past, but the music is still alive in my paintings." Once upon a time, using the name Mark Ashton,  he played in a band called Rare Bird, which opened for the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd. He traveled the world with the band and their first single called "Sympathy" became an international hit. But Vey now makes make music on canvas with acrylic paints. You can hear that music in each artwork and the movement of his trees is mesmerizing. The seductive colors he uses are quite hypnotic.

Vey has exhibited in New York, London, Barcelona, St. Tropez, Aix-An Provence, Nice, and Hamburg. His paintings are on permanent display in various galleries around the world, and they are in many important collections,  including that of Julian Lennon. After 3 years painting in Spain, he now lives and paints in Nice Côte d’Azur France. He is represented by a London dealer and, luckily for us, the music continues on.


Portrait de Genocide: A Political Statement

Sal Scolara, an esteemed professor emeritis from The University of Connecticut, wrote these thoughtful words about a mixed media piece created by Pedro Martin DeClet. It was exhibited by my gallery at the American Visionary Art Museum. This large, prestigious work, featured in the museum's catalogue, is available for sale at the gallery.
"Some artists, like Pedro Martin DeClet, have chosen to create political statements that suggest a new-found kinship with oppressed cultural groups and the positive and affirming act of presenting a political statement for the consideration of viewers. DeClet's Portrait de Genocide is a powerful media related work which chronicles the U.S. government's genocide of native American Indians. The artist has lain out a loose grid of some 50 photocopied images (the number corresponding to the number of states in our country) made from archival photographs of famous Indian chiefs and related imagery. Atop this strong, historical gallery of Indian history, the artist has painted a bold, blood-red graphic image suggestive of rock hieroglyphs found in Indian areas of the Southwest. This blood-red colored sign seems to be a target and a tribute, a marker of the passing of these great leaders. DeClet aligns himself with those that would remind us of these ugly scars upon our nation's history. Make no mistake -- it is not simply an artwork of rebellion one sees here, but a truth laid bare -- and some artists have traditionally used their art to comment on society and its ills. This is a positive act of growth and concern, a connecting to something greater that one's immediate situation."

Greg Giegucz: From Potter to Printmaker

The following is the information directly from the site of an artist and friend I met at @ Martha's Vineyard many years ago. He has moved from the medium of clay to printmaking with the same great success.

"A native of New York, Greg Giegucz is a multimedia artist who resides and works out of New Orleans. After earning an MFA from the Memphis College of Art in August 2006, Giegucz relocated to New Orleans to draw from its devastated landscape, still recovering in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Fascinated with imagery that combines cities with living organisms, Giegucz joined New Orleans’s rapidly evolving community to study

displacement.

Giegucz is a founding member of the Greater New Orleans Artist Mansion and is a parttime

instructor of art at the New Orleans Artworks at the New Orleans School of Glassworks and Printmaking Studio. 

Giegucz describes his work as a personal journal of illustrated characters and symbols, evoked from memory and intuition. His art narrates Everyman’s quiet struggle to reconcile his respective place in an unbalanced and fragmented world of human discourse.

For more information, and to read about numerous prestigious awards, please visit www.giegucz.com

HAI is Offering Art for the 99%

HAI is hosting 100 Living Rooms, an evening of Outsider Art, live music, wine and food on Saturday June 16th from 6pm-9pm at The Gallery at HAI (548 Broadway, 3rd Floor) New York, NY.

Purchase a ticket and you are guaranteed to go home with a piece of original art From HAI's Archive of Outsider Art. HAI’s Archive of Outsider Art includes thousands of paintings and drawings by individuals with mental illness who were able to find their creative voices through participating in HAI Arts Workshops.  These individuals were institutionalized for decades, and had been released into adult homes in Far Rockaway and Coney Island, where HAI Workshop Artists were introduced to them.  Of the thousands of people who participated in HAI Workshops, these twenty or so individuals became completely absorbed by drawing and painting developing remarkable bodies of work.  HAI began exhibiting their work in galleries and museums in the 1980’s, and continues to represent their work today, along with contemporary Outsider Artists.

 Art selection begins at 7pm sharp and work is selected in the order tickets are purchased.
Art Collector- A $100 ticket guarantees you will choose one of the first ten pieces of art
Art Fan- A $35 ticket guarantees you leave with a fabulous piece of art

To purchase tickets by phone please visit http://100livingrooms.eventbrite.com/  OR call 212.575.7660

Art can be previewed online at ww.hainyc.org or at the HAI Gallery starting May 30th.

Book of the Gospels, updated!

Self-taught artist Laura James got quite an unusual request from the Catholic Church! Could she make 34 paintings for a new authorized version of the Book of The Gospels? Leaning on her Antiguan heritage, Laura produced a body of work that is simply breathtaking. When completed it was show at the Divinity School at Yale University to very high acclaim. This elegant book is now actively being used in the Catholic Church throughout the country. The richly embossed gold and leather cover depicting an angel and a lion on a background of green, red, brown and gold, are a mere hint of what is inside. No longer is this a simply a white man's tale......all races are depicted, and the Gospel according to Christ is greatly enhanced by the inclusion.

Laura James writes:

As a child I had a big book of Bible stories where everyone was sort of a yellow ochre color, except for the blond and blue-eyed Jesus and servants who were gray and strangely apelike. Even then I recognized that this was a racist depiction.

Later, I felt vindicated when I saw Ethiopian iconography and impressed with Ethiopia’s ancient Christian heritage… and I decided that painting in that style was a good way to show multicultural diversity in Biblical figures to a western audience.

To this end my work has been used worldwide by numerous Christian denominations and is at the forefront of the movement toward more inclusion in religious art. To me the work is traditional but still contemporary because of the time it’s being done and because it’s being done by me, a Black woman from Brooklyn, who’s never even been to Ethiopia!

Inga Moijson, From Childhood to Here

Although as a child, Inga Moijson attended art lessons on the weekends, she is basically a self-taught artist. She delves deeply into her childhood for subject matter and emotions. In her bio she writes:

"To me painting is a way of expressing my innermost self. By giving it form, I give others an opportunity to share that sacred space. I allow the beholder to peer into a subconscious parallel world that coexists with ‘reality’. Naturally, there are points of contact with reality; we are all influenced by what happens around us. But my soul is strong enough and wilful enough to retain its individuality. For the outsider, it is difficult to remain indifferent. With a little luck, my work will grip him to such an extent that he will truly feel it and be able to make my world his own."

Moijson's complex, brightly painted and edgy works are sometimes confrontational, but always appealing. Their fairy tale exterior belies a deeper and profound meaning, and yet the works are accessible on many levels. You can tell yourself the story or search for that of the artist. Either way, they are fascinating paintings with a lot of staying power. The artist lives in Belgium with her husband and two talking parakeets, and has been painting full time for eight years.

Sculpture in The Garden Show

The Sculpture in The Garden Show is almost here ! Mark down Saturday, June 11th and Sunday June 12th in your calendars. I'm introducing three new artists who, relying almost entirely on recycled materials, have created some remarkable works of art. And the regular crew, whom you've come to expect, will be bringing tantalizing new pieces.

William Brock will be returning from Tennessee, and his birds, seen to the right, were one of the highlights of the show last year. Wait till you see what I've collected for this year!

Birds, fish, masks, stone sculpture, robots, musicians, horses, birdhouses, and even handmade and quite quirky dolls by Sandy Mastroni will be offered. You will now be able to order handcrafted metal stands for the popular stone heads, should you want to bring them inside. Mine stay out all year and give the garden interest even in the winter. (We won't always get 64 inches of snow!)

This year, to mix things up a bit, Maishe Dickman is showing his elegant redware pottery, which has made the cover of Ceramics Monthly.

This is a fun visit for the whole family.

9am to 4pm each day

See you there!

Bev

Beverly Kaye

15 Lorraine Dr.

Woodbridge, CT

203 387 5700

Gallery: http://www.artbrut.com

Blog: http://www.BeverlyKayeGallery.blogspot.com

Sales Blog: http://www.ArtbrutAndOutsiderArt.blogspot.com

Transmutations and Metamorphosis, The Collages of Ann Irwin

This announcement was just sent to me by Ann Irwin's husband, Roy Zipris, who has worked tirelessly to make this posthumous exhibition a reality. I strongly encourage everyone to make the trip to the Michener Art Museum to see this extraordinary work!

July 9 through October 16, 2011

Pfundt Gallery

In Ann Irwin's universe, the unexpected becomes commonplace and the commonplace is never exactly what you expect. Houses sprout heads and rays of fire. Hills bristle with stick figures. Trees grow ribs and skulls. These transformations can be both ominous and optimistic, witty and wise; they arose from a life committed to creativity and represented a daily triumph over adversity.

Born in 1942 in New York, Irwin grew up in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Boston Museum School and the Tyler School of Art. After years of travel, she settled in Bucks County where she apprenticed at the Moravian Tile Works, and began to create highly-detailed, meticulously crafted collages, using old books, fabric, and found objects. Over several decades she quietly produced an extensive body of work, rich in a deeply personal mythology that featured imaginative images of birds, houses, trees, and flowers. In spite of serious and ongoing health problems, she continued to visit her studio every day, making complex works that sometimes expressed her fears and troubles, but were often whimsical and light-hearted as well. Even during her final illness in 2005, when she was confined to a hospital bed for several weeks, she continued to draw and make collages until just a few days before she died.

Organized by the Michener Art Museum, this exhibition is drawn from the private collection of Irwin's family and samples several decades of her collage work.

Engineer, Fighter Pilot, Painter

Bill Rabinovitch was an engineering student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute when we first met. Then he went on to become a fighter pilot, and then a hippy painter living in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco. He came to visit once and left the kitchen sink filled with unwashed paintbrushes sitting next to my baby's sterilized bottles. I was not amused.

Eventually he moved to New York and created over 2,000 hours of video archives of all the museum, high end gallery and alternative space openings in the city. This invaluable footage included interviews with the top artists, their collectors, the gallerists, the directors and the curators. This footage became fodder for Bill's cable show "ArtSeen" which proved highly popular for many years.

Our paths crossed again while waiting for admission to the Outsider Art Fair one bitterly cold winter day. I learned that he had become somewhat of a NY legend. He had just written a film called Pollack Squared which was to open at the New York Independent Film Festival. His very appealing paintings now hung in NY galleries. He composed respectable music. I forgave him for the mess in my California kitchen and we resumed our friendship. I learned that Bill also wrote some exceptional screen plays about artists, including the highly acclaimed Picasso and the Weeping Women. If you can get a copy of his films, or watch them on the internet, you will be delighted. In the meantime, here's one of my favorite Rabinovitch paintings for you to enjoy. I think I remember that shade of orange in my sink!

Mail Art Show About Jesus!

Sharon Silverman is hosting a fantastic Mail Art show in Haverhill, MA from March through May 2011. The subject is The Face of Jesus and below is the information so that you, too can be part of this exhibit. Outsider artists, tattoo artists and graffiti artists are also welcome to submit your art. When this show is over, Sharon will search for another city, and another state.
She writes to me, "Since none of the work is for sale and it is shown to the public for free, I can usually get great press and large audiences....which ultimately gives both me and my fellow artists more publicity. I can't do these shows all the time, but it certainly has proved very worthwhile for me to do them once in awhile. I always choose a topic / theme that interests me as an artist or some kind of message I am interested in putting out to the world...staying true to myself gives me the energy and stamina I need to sustain moving this show around."

Here are three mail art pieces which have come from Greece, Kentucky and Belgium. Come join the fun! This will be a marvelous and powerful show!

An International MailArt Gallery Exhibition

Theme : The Face of Jesus

Medium : Open

Size : Open

All works must be sent by mail. No email entries. Artists may submit up to 4 pieces. No fee. No jury. No returns.

All works must be signed by the artist and include the artist's address or some sort of contact information.

The Gallery Exhibition will take place March-May 2011 at Angles and Art Gallery, 80 Wingate Street in Haverhill, Massachusetts. This Show is a traveling exhibition. All artists will receive printed documentation, as well as the names and addresses of all participating artists from around the world. Artists will receive publicity online, as well as through the mail. The Show will be open to the public FREE of charge. This is art for art's sake... to be enjoyed by everyone. I am not looking for your political views on Christianity or the Catholic Church. I am specifically documenting the creative ways contemporary artists / mailartists depict the Face of Jesus in the 20th & 21st Century. Do not send shock art or Jesus humor to this mailart call or artwork promoting hate or intolerance. Please pass this on and invite other artists to participate.

Send work to:

The Face of Jesus – An International MailArt Exhibition

c/o Sharon Silverman

P.O. Box 1212

Haverhill, MA 01831

USA

Huber redux......better than ever.....

"The Poet's Eye" is the name of the upcoming Winter show of new works on paper by Germany's Alexandra Huber. Be prepared for a new sophistication and elegance. Large works, 25" x 29" are more involved that the usual 6" x 6" treats, and the bigger size gives the artist more room to explore her many layered references. They are highly successful images, chosen from a large portfolio, and the color is saturated and alluring. Human relationships and foibles are at their heart, and they present a fresh story at each telling. Catalogues are available. I know you will be smitten......

Using Both Sides of The Brain

Saturated in color, humorous in theme, the paintings of self-taught artist Thomas Chat are a complete delight. His background is unexpected. In 1997 he attended a university in London where he studied chemistry. He began painting in 2004, and this UK artist, who was raised in Hong Kong, has been heavily influenced by the Colonial melting pot of his youth. He spent his summer holidays often walking around the street and hills alone, absorbing this unique culture.

Thomas continues to travel the world and has returned to Hong Kong often and thrives in it's familiarity. He acknowledges that painting is his first love and his work certainly reflects the joy he finds.

Another View Through the Glass

A dance instructor in a mental institution, a fortune teller, a restaurant owner, a carpenter, all these words describe Richard Lee in various periods of his life. But this 77 year old man is best known world wide, as one of, if not the best artist who works in reverse glass painting.

All of his zoomorphic pieces, done on antique mirrors and cabinets, start with the details and then move forward. After making a black and white draft, and stripping the mirror of all it's old silver coating, he starts creating his intriguing images backwards onto the surface, painting in highlights first. He also strips the wood, covering it with unique silver, copper and/or gold leaf, making wonderful frames for his highly delightful and complex paintings.

Barefooted most of the time, Richard works, when he's not on the beach, in a small gallery hidden behind his wife Claudia's jewelry store. Most of his masterpieces are in the $10,000 to $20,000 dollar range, but the gallery was lucky enough to score a small example, under $1000, which he donated to the once yearly and highly anticipated Chicken Alley Flea Market Tag Sale. Organized by his friend, and well-known art collector and humanitarian, Olga Hirshorn, this sale is a huge draw to those in the know, who live or summer on Martha's Vineyard. Thanks to the cooperation of my entire crew of children and grandchildren, I was able to get a place quite close to the front of the line, and grabbed the Richard Lee, along with an overlooked bakelite bracelet. Oh happy day! This work will be posted on the Beverly Kaye gallery site shortly.

If I were in Chicago November 4th through the 7th, 2010, this is where you could find me! The Chicago-based The Art Fair Company announced it will produce two art fairs under one roof at Chicago’s historic Navy Pier. For the first time, The Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art will share center stage in Festival Hall with Chicago’s much-anticipated art fair mainstay, the 17th Annual International Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair: SOFA CHICAGO 2010. One general admission ticket of $15.00 admits visitors to both fairs and their related lecture series, special exhibits and events. Both fairs kick-off with a joint Opening Night Preview in Festival Hallon Thursday, Nov. 4. The public is cordially invited to attend from 7 - 9 pm for the ticket price of $50.00. Check this website for more information: http://www.sofaexpo.com/ What an exciting combination!

(Image by Minnie Evans)

Artefacting Mumbai

Dharavi... Asia's largest "slum" is known around the world as a place of extreme poverty with 600,000 people living within a square mile... a place so harsh on the eyes from the outside that its been marginalized, alienated and written off from society. It's slated to be destroyed and replaced with high-rise towers, and supposedly nothing is to be lost. These notions couldn't be further from the truth.

In November of 2010 Brooklyn-based painter/urbanist Alex White Mazzarella and videographer Casey Nolan will install themselves in Dharavi to immerse themselves in a bustling industrious economy and deep community to excavate another truth. Paintings, video, photography, and journalism created during the project's three month life will tell a story of a complex society of migrants that has lifted itself out of poverty by coming together through embracing entrepreneurship, collaboration and community. This is a Dharavi from which even the world's most cultured cities, and wealthy communities can learn from as there is nothing hiding the mechanics of the humanity here. Artistic initiatives with the community, productions and exhibitions in Mumbai, New York City, Portland and Boston, will recreate the experience of Dharavi to viewers by engaging their senses, hearts and minds.

The artists will be giving classes (photography and mixed media painting) to the Dharavi children working in the recycling industry through a partnering with ACORN's Dharavi project. Learn more about the project by visiting www.lamazza.com/artefacting-mumbai/ and follow the project on facebook by visiting www.facebook.com/pages/Artefacting-Mumbai/111968478853657?ref=ts.

"Society Under Fire", Alex White Mazzarella

I highly recommend this show and this artist. Don't miss it!

ABOUT THE ARTIST Alex White-Mazzarella, Boston 1979, is trained as an economist, urban planner and artist who moved to New York City in 2008 after living in Hong Kong, Barcelona and Rome. Building upon street art and graffiti as the cave paintings of today, his intense yet whimsical work expresses perspectives on the contemporary human in an urban language derived from his current working city, New York.

ABOUT SOAPBOX GALLERY Soapbox Gallery is dedicated to providing a forum for visual artists to engage in the issues of our time and express themselves publicly without censorship. In the tradition of the humble yet mighty soapbox that encouraged free speech and played a role in the development of our social contract, provocative work can stir public debate, raise consciousness, and even spur social evolution. Too many of us despair at the lack of content in work celebrated by the ART world. Soapbox Gallery challenges artists to speak out and be relevant.

Slotin Masterpiece Auction

If you are anywhere near Buford, Georgia and you love this type of art, you need to attend the Slotin Masterpiece Folk Art Auction, held May 1st and 2nd. The owners are connoisseurs of outsider and folk art and have access to top materials in the field. The stunning and very informative catalogue can be accessed on-line, or delivered to your door, and you can participate at home or in person.
In person is so much more exciting! Collectors from all over the country show up for fun, food and fabulous art, much of which can be bought at affordable prices. And once you get two or three of them focused on the same prize, the real excitement begins. There are over 1000 works of art at this sale, including pieces by Mattie Lou O'Kelley, Bryan McNutt, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Elijah Pierce, and many more. I urge you to go to the link and be sure to let me know how you do!