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!

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."

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."

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.

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!

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......

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)

"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.

Birds, fish, houses and of course, folks!

Mike Bailey is a self-taught MA artist , some of whose works definitely remind me in iconography and style of Rene Magritte. Mike's paintings have been shown in various alternative spaces and was recently been featured in two books, "Art in King Size Beds" and "Art of Everyday Joe". He generously takes part in various charity auctions and fundraisers every year, and can be found on eBay. Delightful work with a twist.

Laura N. James, praying out loud

With an Antiguan heritage and a love for detail and storytelling, in the year 2000, Laura N. James made a spectacular group of paintings for a Book of Gospels , for the Roman Catholic Church. There is a diverse cast of characters represented, of all shades and nationalities, and the artwork is gorgeous! But this young New Yorker also paints Jazz figures which seduce the eye with their colors and movement, and her series, "Nannies and Other Mothers" grabs at your heart. Women who leave their own families far behind to come to the United States to care for the children of others is a powerful and often neglected subject. She handles it with a grace and compassion for all involved and the paintings are luscious.

Mary Shelley, adrift in beauty

Folk art at it's best is carved by New York State's, Mary Shelley. She is a self-taught, visionary artist whose work fits into several other catagories.....Naïve, Americana, whimsical, Outsider, primitive and carved craft. If fact the work is simply glorious. She manages to paint a picture story of ordinary events and she brings the wood to life with each cut. Her themes range from waitresses, diners, animals, farms, and regional life, to events on the sea, which are my personal favorites. In the Summer months you can meet her at the Ithaca Farmer's Market, carving her latest masterpiece. She is an American treasure!

Definitions, just a starting point........

Both Raw Vision magazine and Wikipedia have posted this information before, but I offer it again as a good starting point for understanding the difference between many of the terms used to define outsider art.

A number of terms are used to describe art that is loosely understood as "outside" of official culture. Definitions of these terms vary, and there are areas of overlap between them. The editors of Raw Vision, a leading journal in the field, suggest that "Whatever views we have about the value of controversy itself, it is important to sustain creative discussion by way of an agreed vocabulary". Consequently they lament the use of "outsider artist" to refer to almost any untrained artist. "It is not enough to be untrained, clumsy or naïve. Outsider Art is virtually synonymous with Art Brut in both spirit and meaning, to that rarity of art produced by those who do not know its name."

• Art Brut: literally translated from French means "raw art"; 'Raw' in that it has not been through the 'cooking' process: the art world of art schools, galleries, museums. Originally art by psychotic individuals who existed almost completely outside culture and society. Strictly speaking it refers only to the Collection de l'Art Brut.
• Folk art: Folk art originally suggested crafts and decorative skills associated with peasant communities in Europe - though presumably it could equally apply to any indigenous culture. It has broadened to include any product of practical craftsmanship and decorative skill - everything from chain-saw animals to hub-cap buildings. A key distinction between folk and outsider art is that folk art typically embodies traditional forms and social values, where outsider art stands in some marginal relationship to society's mainstream.
• Intuitive art / Visionary art: Raw Vision Magazine's preferred general terms for outsider art. It describes them as deliberate umbrella terms. However, Visionary Art unlike other definitions here can often refer to the subject matter of the works, which includes images of a spiritual or religious nature. Intuitive art is probably the most general term available. Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art based in Chicago operates a museum dedicated to the study and exhibition of intuitive and outsider art. The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is dedicated to the collection and display of visionary art.
• Marginal art/Art singulier: Essentially the same as Neue Invention; refers to artists on the margins of the art world.
• Naïve art: Another term commonly applied to untrained artists who aspire to "normal" artistic status, i.e. they have a much more conscious interaction with the mainstream art world than do outsider artists.
• Neuve Invention: Used to describe artists who, although marginal, have some interaction with mainstream culture. They may be doing art part-time for instance. The expression was coined by Dubuffet too; strictly speaking it refers only to a special part of the Collection de l'Art Brut.
• Visionary environments: Buildings and sculpture parks built by visionary artists - range from decorated houses, to large areas incorporating a large number of individual sculptures with a tightly associated theme. Examples include Watts Towers by Simon Rodia, Buddha Park and Sala Keoku by Bunleua Sulilat, and The Palais Ideal by Ferdinand Cheval.

The Museum of Everything opens in London

Secrets — you love them. Telling them, hearing them, keeping them — who cares? — as long as something is revealed. We’ve got a new one for you. Opening today is The Museum of Everything — a space dedicated to secret art. The temporary venue showcases paintings, sculptures and curiosities by unintentional artists. Like Fleury Joseph Crépin, a plumber, miner and spiritualist who received a calling to paint 300 temples. And the Indian road worker who created ceramics from recycled remnants of his village.

Although rarely seen by the public, such work is often used as inspiration by mainstream artists, many of whom have curated the inaugural exhibition.

But before you get a peek, you’ll have to find the anonymous black door of a former dairy and recording studio hidden down a back alleyway in Primrose Hill. Word is out. Art is in. The Museum of Everything, Sharpleshall Street, NW1 8YN (020 7957 5325 or museumofeverything.com).

Photo and article: Courtesy of The Museum of Everything

Cynthia Rogers, a recycler of memories.......

Assemblage constructions are what Cynthia Rogers creates from "found objects, juxtaposed in surprising ways, subverting reason and bringing to the forefront subconscious associations, meanings and metaphors that express (Cynthia's) response to contemporary life."

This California artist has quite a vocabulary, made up of simple treasures and bits of flotsam and jetsam which are familiar and yet a little strange at the same time. She spent endless hours as a child, beach-combing, in hopes of finding the illusive and colorful hand blown glass globes used in the Sea of Japan in fishing nets, and on her walks she collected the sea's offerings, as many of us have done. But, instead of just existing as a collection decorating a shelf, some of these items have found their way into her assemblages. Cynthia has returned to these roots and adds to her bounty "discarded objects once loved, now abandoned. It is a kind of consumer recycling program, where psychologically, all things are considered." Click on the title link and explore her site, which is filled with wondrous surprises.

Jail and Museum do not usually end up in the same sentence....

Pedro Martin DeClet has come a very long way since his stint as head of the Latin Kings gang in the CT prison system. His works are now on display in the American Visionary Art Museum's newest show, Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness, curated by Roger Manley. Declet's Portrait de Genocide honors past martyrs in both the American Indian and Hispanic culture and is a powerful work with it's bleeding pictograph placed center stage. In another room is a hand-made book filled with paintings and paperwork which reflect his disavowal of the infamous gang, along with an altered book, a cross sculpture and a canvas carrying bag sporting a self-portrait. There is also a construction called El Philosopher which is made up of a time clock together with time cards hand painted by the artist. Pedro Martin DeClet is a man who does not look back, but rather reflects on a positive future. I thank Roger Manley for having an open mind and including these important works in his stellar show. It will run for close to a year and is worth the visit to the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, where the AVAM sits like a dazzling crowning jewel.
Photos courtesy of Roger Manley, curator

Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness......AVAM

Judge for yourselves, the ART of Chris Mars

I'm simply giving you a quote and posting three works......the art of Chris Mars speaks volumes for itself. Do click on the title and spend some time ruminating on his works. It might not be your style, but boy, is he talented.
"From my hands, my mission: To free the oppressed; to champion the persecuted, and the submissive; to liberate through revelation the actualized Self in those proposed by some to have no self at all. It’s in every single one of us, somewhere underneath that word on our chest.
In my hands, my version: All art is political in some sense, be it through conformity, reflection, propaganda or rebellion. My paintings are rallies and trials, photographs of a moment when Truth was made public, and Mercy known.
Question why a villain is villainized, a victim martyred. Ask why a group is demonized, and the motives for control. See for yourself what the truth looks like in your hands. Dig it up and hold it for a while. This work you see, it’s my Truth. But please don’t take my word for it."

With pen in hand.......

Johannesburg artist, Charles Munro's work is complex and humorous, strange, yet strangely appealing. Judge for yourself.....

With love from Bonwit Teller.......

First collect engravings.....the older the better. Then dissect them and place into various categories. Then assemble them into fanciful collages. Then comes the hand painting. Then the sponged mats. Finally the flea market frames and the tongue in cheek titles. Or maybe that came first. Anyway, this is the art of Anthony Guyther. His works have been seen in fashion windows in NY since the 1960's, and now they decorate the walls of many collectors who always have to have more than one. He is a master at what he does, an artist's artist. And he is still going strong. The collage illustrated here is "Birdman and His Birddog", which utilizes 9 engravings. More of his work can be seen at Beverly Kaye Gallery and by clicking on the title.