At first glance the works of Anna Zemánková seem to document the vegetable kingdom. It does not take much to realize that these are not a mere representation of nature but of a more secret inner world.
MAMADOU CISSÉ
The theme of his works is the imaginary city represented with bird’s-eye perspectives, futuristic and kaleidoscopic visions.
HASSAN
Of Senegalese origins, Hassan is located in a Barcelona. He lives lonely on the street in a neighborhood that hosts many wine warehouses: the wine boxes are the tables on which he makes his drawings.
KIYOSHI TOYA
Kiyoshi Toya’s drawings are only in appearance the objective representations of real cities, made with extreme detail and precision.
MISLEIDYS CASTILLO PEDROSO and her pristine world
My fascination with pop, bright color and the inner universes inevitably led me to Misleidys Francisca Castillo Pedroso.
ITSUO KOBAYASHI: food love before any #foodporn
For 28 years Itsuo Kobayashi worked as a chef in a Soba restaurant (traditional Japanese dishes with buckwheat pasta) and in a supply center for school meals in Saitama.
ALOÏSE CORBAZ and the meaning of love
Aloïse Corbaz was a cultured and educated woman who worked ad a private tutor at the German court of Kaiser Wilhelm II, where she taught his pastor’s daughter.
MARTÍN RAMÍREZ
MARTÍN RAMÍREZ(1895-1960 | MEXICO/CALIFORNIA) Martín Ramírez was born in 1895 in Jalisco, Mexico. Widely considered one of the 20th century’s self-taught masters of drawing, he produced some 500 drawings and collages during the 15 years he spent as a psychiatric inmate at DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, California.Thrust by political and religious upheavals caused by […]
MICHAEL PELLEW
I discovered Michael Pellew at the New York’s Outsider Art Fair 2017 and I fell in love with his works.
OVARTACI
OVARTACI(1984-1985 | DENMARK) Louis Marcussen was born at Ebeltolf, Denmark on 26 September 1894. Louis grew up with a large number of siblings – some of them died in an early age or had various disabilities – in one of the most beautiful houses in Ebeltoft. Already in his youth Louis was absorbed with yoga, Buddhism […]
HENRY DARGER
HENRI DARGER (1892-1973, CHICAGO, USA) “The story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion”, or 15.000 pages discovered by chance by Nathan Lerner, the owners of a Chicago room where a lonely man spent part of his life.Henry […]
ADAM GRIPPO
Adam Grippo began drawing at the age of 30. His enigmatic works have been described as unique and mysterious.
MOHAMMAD KAZEMZADEH
MOHAMMAD KAZEMZADEH (1992, IRAN) Mohammad Kazemzadeh is a young iranian artist born on January 31, 1992. He should have been born with a twin, but doctors could only bring him to this world.Early childhood years prior to primary school, made Mohammad’s disabilities apparent and he began speech and behavior therapy under the supervision of specialists. […]
NORIMITSU KOKUBO
NORIMITSU KOKUBO (1995, SHIGA PREFECTURE, JAPAN) Norimitsu Kokubo started drawing in the period of elementary school, to “exorcise” his introversion and lacking in social skills.He would keep drawing quietly in notebooks and any other pieces of paper available, such as the back sides of calendars or advertisement flyers.His amazing meticulous works are cover by details: […]
CHIYUKI SAKAGAMI
CHIYUKI SAKAGAMI(1961 | JAPAN) Chiyuki Sakagami was born in 1961 in Japan. Now she lives in Kobe, but she claims that she was born 6 billion years ago in the Precambrian sea, where the fish have sought her to survive in the ocean waters. After exploring different continents she has found herself on a volcanic island, awakened […]
BAUDOUIN FIERENS
BAUDOUIN FIERENS(1975 | BELGIUM) He attends the workshop of Luc Mondry and Nicole Babila at La Clarière. His work is characterized by torn, imprisoned figures. The line appears continuous. Black shapes haunt the white of the paper, traces affirming existence as much as revealing vulnerability and emptiness. The signature “BAUDOUIN” is part of the composition. […]
KASHINATH CHAWAN
KASHINATH CHAWAN (1950, INDIA) Kashinath Chawan draws in ballpoint pen on torn cardboard or pieces cut out from salvaged shoe boxes, or else on used pieces of paper found on the floor.Chawan does no sketches or preliminary drawings: his first lines are light and imprecise. These he then builds up by repeating them in little […]
FAUSTO BADARI
FAUSTO BADARI(1962 | ITALY) Fausto Badari was born in Roverbella, Italy. His parents suffered from psychic disorders and lived in great poverty. Fragile since childhood, his condition deteriorated through lack of support, and worsened when his father died in 1992. He was in and out of a home until 2004. But his mental health continued […]
ZDENÊK KOŠEK
ZDENÊK KOŠEK(1949 | CZECH REPUBLIC) The self-taught artist Zdenek Kosek worked ad a typographer and drew caricatures and satirical cartoons for regional magazines and newspapers, but he also produced some unconventional paintings. In the 1980s a deep psychological divide gradually changed his perception of the world ; he was diagnosed as psychotic and had to retire in […]
DAMIAN MICHAELS
DAMIAN MICHAELS(1969 | USA – AUSTRALIA) Damian Michaels was born in Virginia in 1969, his earliest years were nomadic owing to the demands of his father’s job. In the mid-1970s the family settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the age of eight, Michaels experienced his first epiphany, in the form of a visitation […]
LEE GODIE and her ante litteram “selfies”
Lee Godie (Jabot Emily Godee) was born in 1908 and she lived most of her life in Chicago. After the failure of her two marriages and the death of two of her four children, she became an homeless on the streets of Chicago.
BA ZI
BA ZI (1983 | CHINA) Ba Zi was born with the love of painting but he refused many times the idea of looking for a painting teacher for him, because the taught knowledge is far from his pursuit. He wanted to express his spiritual aspirations with an artistic language. During his growth he has some psychological […]
DANIEL JOHNSTON
DANIEL JOHNSTON (1961-2019 | USA) Daniel Johnston was born in Sacramento (California), in 1961. He was the fifth child of a religious family and he grows up in West Virginia, learns to play the piano and he began to draw since a very young age. His favourite subjects were the characters of the comic, especially […]
TERRY WILLIAMS
TERRY WILLIAMS (1952 | AUSTRALIA) A prolific worker, Terry Williams’s art practice encompasses animation, ceramics, foam sculpture, texta drawing and watercolour. His detailed series of ceramic buildings and aeroplanes is a unique depiction of the modern industrial world. In contrast to the strong physicality of his three-dimensional work, his works on paper show loose black […]
MARIA PRIMACHENKO
MARIA PRIMACHENKO (1908-1997 | UKRAINE) Maria Primachenko was born in Bolotnya, a village near Chernobyl (Kyiv), in 1908. As a young girl, she contracted polio, and this grave illness affected her childood’s life. At an early age she used to paint the interior of her home and of her neighbours. Primachenko’s works caught the eye of […]
SOLANGE KNOPF
SOLANGE KNOPF(1957 | BELGIUM) “Solange Knopf was born in Brussels in 1957. Like many others of her generation she dipped in and out of the world counterculture of the 60’s and 70’s and travelled the globe (India, Afghanistan, Iran, Morocco). Circumstances led to some personal tragedies and drawing became a way of assuaging pain, depression […]
AALTJE DAMMER
AALTJE DAMMER (1907-? | NETHERLANDS) Dammer’s consulting psychiatrist wrote in a letter to mark the transfer of a folder containing all her preserved drawings: “Aaltje Dammer was an extremely introverted woman, who always gave shape to her emotions in the same rigorous way“. In 1928 – aged just 21 – she was admitted to a […]
YASSIR AMAZINE
YASSIR AMAZINE(1975 | BELGIUM) Yassir Amazine doesn’t wish to communicate on his life outside his creative work at the studio of Luc Mondry and Nicole Babbles at La Clairière. He makes drawings with black, red and blue ballpoint pens, in order to create repetitive and violent lines. He uses his pen like a weapon, as if […]
HERMAN BOSSERT
HERMAN BOSSERT (1940 | NETHERLANDS) Herman Bossert was born in Amsterdam, in 1940, formerly a French teacher by profession. He’s a self-taught artist which creates paintings of mysterious town and city scenes that evokes associations with expressionism and surrealism.A major upheaval in 2001 led him to focus solely on drawing. He subsequently worked associatively, with a […]
KUNIZO MATSUMOTO
KUNIZO MATSUMOTO(1962 | JAPAN) Kunizo Matsumoto was born in Osaka, Japan, where he is in charge of the dishes in the family restaurant. He was fascinated by the notes that the staff at the establishment wrote in little notebooks and attempted to reproduce them, event though he had never learnt to write. He obsessively collects […]
RAPHAËL LONNÉ
RAPHAËL LONNÉ (1910-1989 | FRANCE) Raphaël Lonné was born in the Landes region of France. He worked as a postman in his village, Montfort-en-Chalosse. From 1937 he was employed in Bordeaux, first as a cashier on the trams, then as a concierge, driver and hospital worker. Subsequently he again found employment as a postman in […]
MEHRDAD RASHIDI
MEHRDAD RASHIDI(1963 | IRAN) Mehrdad Rashidi was born in the town of Sari in Northern Iran in 1963. At the age of 20 he fled Iran because of his strongly held political views and settled in Germany. In 2006, for no particular reason, he began to draw. He found it relaxed him and made him […]
YING GEE ZHOU
YING GEE ZHOU (1978 | CHINA-USA) Born in 1978, in Guandong, China, Ying Gee came to Creative Growth with a strong aptitude for drawing and painting. Though relatively new to the studio, Zhou has created numerous works with a focus on painting, both on paper as well as textiles. Her loose, punctuated style is reminiscent […]
JOHANN HAUSER
JOHANN HAUSER (1926-1996 | AUSTRIA) Johann Hauser was born near Bratislava, Slovakia. As a child he was placed in a special school and remained illiterate. Considered to be feeble-minded, he was admitted to a psychiatric institution where he was described as dreamy, impulsive and quarrelsome. In 1949 he was transferred to a psychiatric hospital in […]
CHARLES BENEFIEL
CHARLES BENEFIEL (1967 | USA) Charles Benefiel was born in Venice Beach, California. His highly detailed works reflect his condition of obsessive compulsive disorder. Using draughtsman’s pens, he draws series of dots and points to compose his pictures of linear numbers and uniform geometrical figures. Creating his pictures freehand, without any preconceived composition, he counts […]
MARGARETHE HELD
MARGARETHE HELD(1894-1981 | GERMANY) In 1925 Margarethe Held entered in contact with the spirits and communicated with her deceased husband and her father. In 1950, at the age of fifty-six, she began drawing : four hundred pastel drawings in four months – all dictated by spirits. Siwa ordered her to show to other mortals, through her […]
NICK BLINKO
NICK BLINKO(1961 | ENGLAND) British artist, author and punk musician Nick Blinko creates incredibly intricate artworks that reflect the religious and macabre. His crowded landscapes, abundant with symbol and suggestion, depict melancholy and paranoia and serve as a link between the virulence of the punk movement and the catharsis of outsider art. Blinko has produced […]
HUNG TUNG
HUNG TUNG (1920-1987 | TAIWAN) Hung Tung was born in 1920, in a small fishing village near Tainan, in the south of Taiwan. The land was poor and people’s lives were very hard. Hung Tung’s father was dead when he was born and his mother died when he was four. With no money in the […]
MARTIN THOMPSON
MARTIN THOMPSON (1955 | NEW ZELAND) Born in Wellington, New Zeland, in 1955, Martin Thompson is a self-taught artist and mathematician.Straddling the poverty line and unable to manage employment, he survived through support from a government health benefit and his own opportunistic salvaging of demolition wood. Timber became one of Thompson’s greatest passions after being […]
MOTOOKA HIDENORI
MOTOOKA HIDENORI (1978 | JAPAN) Motooka Hidenori was born in Hyôgo district and now lives in Kôbe, in Japan. As a small child, he was intrigued by trains. He often goes to the railway station to photograph them, always front view, and then files the photographs with great care. As soon as a new model […]
THORNTON DIAL
THORNTON DIAL (1928-2016 | USA) Thornton Dial was born in 1928 to a poor family in rural Alabama. He was expected to work from an early age to support his unmarried mother. Having received minimal education, he worked tirelessly at many jobs until his retirement at the age of 55 in 1983. He admits that […]
MELINA RICCIO
MELINA RICCIO (1951 | ITALY) Carmela “Melina” Riccio, was born in 1951, in Ariano Irpino (Italy). Until the age of 33 she spent a common life taking care of her three children; she had worked as a modeller.In 1983, during the MACEF fair (International Home Show), she exhibited her realization, a bedspread with hand-painted lampshades […]
TOMOYUKI SHINKI
TOMOYUKI SHINKI (1982 | JAPAN) Tomoyuki Shinki was born in 1982 in Osaka. He’s an avid fan of combat sports, like wrestling and boxing, judo and Muay Thai.Shinki uses a computer to draw contorted opponens, sometimes black and white but more often vividly colored. In bold cartoonish scenes, Shinki’s fighters punch, grab, pull, smash, and […]
LUBOS PLNY
LUBOS PLNY (1961 | CZECH REPUBLIC) Luboš Plný is the only child of a possessive mother. Already as a child he was drawn to two phenomena: graphic art and anatomy. He used to dissect dead animals and in adulthood attended a number of autopsies on human corpses.After leaving elementary school he went into apprenticeship to […]
JANKO DOMSIC
JANKO DOMSIC (1915-1983 | CROATIA) We know almost nothing of Janko Domsic’s life or the circumstances of his arrival in France. He probably spent some time in prison. He might have lived in Toul, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, and in 1935 worked on the construction of a railroad in Pont-sur-Yvonne. Janko Domsic probably received elementary education. When […]
ALBERT LOUDEN
ALBERT LOUDEN (1943 | ENGLAND) Albert Louden, a former van driver and weight-lifter, was born in Blackpool, England, during the Second World War. He left school at fifteen with no qualifications and worked in a series of driving-related jobs.He didn’t have any aspirations to become an artist, but recalls a day in primary school when […]
EUGENIO SANTORO
EUGENIO SANTORO (1920-2006 | ITALY) Eugenio Santoro was born in Castelmezzano in Lucanie, a region in southern Italy. After five years of elementary schooling he undertook an apprenticeship as a joiner. At the age of 20 he left for the front in Albania and Greece, where he was taken prisoner, then deported to a prisoner-of-war […]
TAKASHI SHUJI
TAKASHI SHUJI (1974 | JAPAN) Takashi Shuji was born in 1974 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. He currently lives with his family in the town of Nishinomiya. After finishing his education in a specialist school (he has Down’s Syndrome), at the age of eighteen, he attended the Suzukake Institution, an establishment providing work for the mentally […]
EVELYNE POSTIC
EVELYNE POSTIC (1951 | FRANCE) Evelyne Postic (born Mazaloubaud) was born in 1951 at the Hotel Dieu Lyon, France. Dancing, her first love, it was canceled due to a serious lung disease that struck her at 5. In addition, the separation of her parents made her a strong sense of abandonment. She was able to […]
J.J. CROMER
J.J.CROMER(1967 | USA) The self-taught artist J.J. Cromer, born in 1967, spent most of his life in central Appalachia. Now he live on a small farm in Pound, Virginia, where he raise ducks and geese with his wife. He had a master’s degree in creative writing and he worked as a librarian.From 1998, frustrated with […]
FRÉDÉRIC BRULY BOUABRÉ
FRÉDÉRIC BRULY BOUABRÉ(1923-2014 | AFRICA) Frédéric Bruly Bouabré was born in Zéprégüe, Côte d’Ivorie, in 1923. He lived and worked in the Ivory Coast capital of Abidjan. His studies were interrupted early because he needed to find a job that would allow him to survive; he worked as a civil servant until March 11, 1948, […]
ROSA ZHARKIKH
ROSA ZHARKIKH(1930-2015 | RUSSIA) Rosa Zharkikh was born in Moscow in 1930. Her mother was a teacher and her father an engineer, but Zharkikh dropped out of high school and graduated from a vocational school that specialized in training blue-collar workers.For all of her adult life, Rosa has worked in a factory. She spent most […]
XIE HONG
XIE HONG (1959 | CHINA) Xie Hong was born in Beijing in 1959, and she spent her working life as a librarian. To alleviate her chronic depression, in 2007, she began to draw compulsively.For the following two years, the several hours used for drawings, relieved her suffering and brought her some well-being. By 2009, her […]
RALHI (AOUAM ABDELARRAZZAK)
RALHI – AOUAM ABDELARRAZZAK(1956 | MOROCCO) Aouam Abdelarrazzak, nicknamed Ralhi (“Big Father”), was born in Khoribga, a mining town south of Casablanca. First he worked as a mechanic on trucks in a printing company, but the closing of the plant, the failure of his marriage and his imprisonment for manslaughter plunged him into deep distress […]
J.J. SEINEN
J.J. SEINEN (1934-2013 | NETHERLANDS) José Johann Seinen was born in the Netherlands in 1934. During the Nazi Occupation, his parents were suspected of collaborating with the Germans and were imprisoned; José and his five brothers were placed in the custody of their grandparents, who lived in Amsterdam. There he began drawing tirelessly: exercise books […]
SCOTTIE WILSON
SCOTTIE WILSON (LOUIS FREEMAN | 1888-1972 | SCOTLAND) “When I’m working I can see what’s happening, and I can imagine what’s going to happen.” Scottie Wilson was born “Louis Freeman” in 1888 to a humble family of Lithuanian immigrants in Glasgow, Scotland. As a child, he didn’t complete many years of schooling in order to […]
MARK BEYER
MARK BEYER (1950, USA) Biographical details about the reclusive Mark Beyer, from Bethlem, Pennsylvania, remain limited. His artistic career kick-started when his first comic strips were published, leading to a number of invitations to contribute to various titles, however the abstracted violence of Beyer’s subject matter and his “self-taught” approach to drawing, had minority appeal.Going […]
RICHARD NIE
RICHARD NIE(1954 | ENGLAND) Richard Nie was born in England in 1954. After leaving secondary school he worked in an office and he embarked on a series of part-time jobs. As a young adult he began to suffer from serious depression and rarely left the family home, spending his nights drawing and playing the guitar, […]
IONEL TALPAZAN
IONEL TALPAZAN (1955-2015 | ROMANIA) The self-taught artist Ionel Talpazan was born in Petrachioaia, Romania. When he was 8 years old, he experienced the presence of a UFO while sleeping by a lake close to his home. From this moment on, Ionel explained his knowledge of UFO technology through his drawings.In 1987, he escaped Romania […]
ANDRÉ ROBILLARD
ANDRÉ ROBILLARD(1931 | FRANCE) André Robillard grew up near Orléans, France. He experienced great behavioural difficulties growing up and at the age of eight he was put in a school attached to a psychiatric hospital. At the age of 19, as a result of mental disturbances, André Robillard was committed to the hospital in Fleury-les-Aubrais: […]
HELMUT
HELMUT(1945 | GERMANY) Helmut Nimczewski was born in Heidelberg, Germany, and he was brought up by his mother because he never knew his father.Retarded, probably as a result of brain damage caused by his epilepsy, he was put in several institutions and psychiatric hospital. Then he moved to a sheltered home in Hamburg where he […]
GUO FENGYI
GUO FENGYI(1942-2010 | CHINA) Guo Fengyi was born in Xi’an, central China, in 1942. She obtained her high school diploma in 1962 and found work in a rubber factory, career that she was constricted to give up at the age of thirty-nine for several attacks of arthritis.After eight years of suffering, she initiated herself into […]
GREGORY L. BLACKSTOCK
GREGORY L. BLACKSTOCK (1946 | USA) The Seattle autistic artist Gregory L. Blackstock began drawing regularly in his mid-40s, studying the world around his like an anthropologist. He has a prodigious memory for visual objects, musical tone and compositions, and foreign languages. He learns of his world by replicating it, subject by subject, piece by […]
JILL GALLIÉNI
JILL GALLIENI(1948 | FRANCE) Jill Galliéni was born in 1948 to an American mother and a French father who was an actor. Brought up away from her parents, her father took over her care when she was seven.Jill always creates strange fabric dolls and turned to prayer towards the age of thirty as a way […]
SERGE DELAUNAY
In his works colours are rare: in fact he uses black felt pen on large sheets of paper to draw mainly cars and spaceships. Delaunay is captivated by science, outer space, spacecraft, car mechanics, various architecture e robots.
CURZIO DI GIOVANNI
CURZIO DI GIOVANNI(1957 | ITALY) Curzio di Giovanni was born in 1957, originally from Lodi (Milan region, Italy). An organic infection delays his mental development and forces him to stay in the psychiatric environment for a long time, until he was admitted to a hospital near Pavia in 1979. Here Di Giovanni starts collecting objects, […]