When the outsider art world comes into contact with scientific reality, then science turns around in favor of new theories, new formulas and new meanings.
RICARDO CAVOLO AND THE OUTSIDERS
The collaborations that Ricardo Cavolo continues to include in his resume are countless, from Alexander McQueen to Zara, Nike, Urban Outfitters, Bally, Converse, and still some special edition stickers for Chiquita. In short, a man full of ideas located in Madrid.
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.
UTOPIX
Utopix is the work and passionate path of Jo Pillet and his family.
It is a live in sculpture, exhibition spaces (indoor and outdoor), it is sculptures-games.
KIYOSHI TOYA
Kiyoshi Toya’s drawings are only in appearance the objective representations of real cities, made with extreme detail and precision.
FABRIZIO MOLINARIO: from the gun to the brush
A few months ago I was at the Rizomi Art Gallery in Parma: here I saw some works that fascinated me a lot. They were small cubic canvases, covered on all sides by blue brushstrokes in which men and fish swam in perfect harmony.
#SurvivalKit – Part 3: AUDIO
PART 3 – AUDIOThe (outsider) survival kit to defeat quarantine boredom. We saw documentaries (#SurvivalKit – Part 1) and we virtually went to galleries and museums (#SurvivalKit – Part 2). After all this effort, it’s time to stop and put on your headphones.Yes, because today I propose some audio files relating to Outsider Art. Among podcasts, audio […]
#SurvivalKit – Part 2: EXHIBITIONS & PROJECTS
We collect some interesting links from the outsider art world to lighten (as far as possible) the isolation situation due to the Covid-19.
#SurvivalKit – Part 1: DOCUMENTARIES
We have collected some interesting links from the outsider art world – from free films to virtual exhibitions, from podcasts to music playlists – to lighten (as far as possible) the isolation situation in which we are finding ourselves due to the Covid emergency.
LELA LOMBARD AND EX NIHILO: a Photoshop Dada
Lela Lombard’s digital work is pure psychic automatism that remains in an immaterial level and is difficult to perceive with the normal senses, as a result of an intuitive elaboration that finds its creative process in “nothing”.
DAVID THOMAS ROBERTS
David Thomas Roberts is a self-taught painter, poet, composer and important pianist born in 1955 in Pascagoula, Mississippi. He showed me his work and answered some of my questions to better understand his relationship with Outsider Art.
NANJING OUTSIDER ART STUDIO
The Nanjing Outsider Art Studio, founded by Guo Haiping in 2006, is the first experience of an Art Therapy laboratory in China. I asked some questions to find out more about this reality.
A short logbook for a weekend of drawings and fresh croissants
Breve diario di bordo per un weekend tra disegni e croissant For a really fast decision, I found myself in Paris with Rizomi Gallery to set up and follow our booth during the first days of Ddessin Paris Contemporary Drawing Fair.In this event Rizomi did not focus on “outsiders”, and it brought Andrea Saltini, protagonist of the last exhibition at […]
Art Brut Film Olomouc 2018
On March 22, 2018, at the Muzeum umění Olomouc (Czech Republic) will take place the seventh edition of the film festival Art Brut Film Olomouc.I asked Pavel Konečný, organizer of the Festival, some questions to find out more about this event and the program of this year. G) Art Brut Film Olomouc reaches the seventh edition. Can you briefly tell […]
MARTÍN RAMÍREZ
The imagery is both suggestive and nostalgic, often reminiscent of his life, as we can see in the representation of his wife Ana, the landscape of his native country, tunnels, trains, horses and riders and Mexican Madonnas.
Outliers in Washington
OUTLIERS AND AMERICAN VANGUARD ARTNational Gallery of Art, Washington: 28.01.18 – 13.05.18High Museum of Art, Atlanta: 24.06.18 – 30.09.18 Los Angeles County Museum of Art: 18.11.18 – 18.03.19 Outliers and American Vanguard Art is the first major exhibition to explore the key moments in American art history when avant-garde artists and outsiders intersected, and how their […]
Ovartaci Fields
Presented by Museum Ovartaci & Business Park SkejbyLocation: Business Park Skejby, 8200 AarhusStarting from: May 10, 2017 Museum Ovartaci is dedicated to the history of the psychiatric treatment and art produced by patients at the Risskov Psychiatric Hospital (Aarhus, Denmark). It is a part of Aarhus University Hospital and resides and the same buildings as the Psychiatric […]
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 […]
Art brut & design?
Yesterday, for Varese Design Week, Nicola Mazzeo (Rizomi Art Brut) and I were invited as Artètipi to talk about the possible relationships between art brut and design. Two worlds seemingly incongruous.Design, in its various meanings, creates consumer objects, places, spaces, and relationships between people through a creative solution to the problems analyzed by an active eye on the […]
Outsiders are still in Venice
Three “outsider” artists at Venice Biennale 2017 Open to the public from Saturday May 13th to Sunday November 26th 2017, at the Giardini and the Arsenale, the 57th International Art Exhibition, titled VIVA ARTE VIVA, will be curated by Christine Marcel and organized by La Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta. The Exhibition will also include 84 National Participations […]
PHILADELPHIA WIREMAN
Philadelphia Wireman, whatever his identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials.
25 years
Outsider Art Fair, New York – January 19-22, 2017 A week ago, between the jet lag and long coffee, I went to the Outsider Art Fair which turns 25 this year, like me. Founded by Sanford L. Smith, to its beginnings it counted 25 exhibitors. Now there were 66 galleries from 9 countries.Unlike the beginning, now […]
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 […]
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 […]
ANTONIO ROSENO DE LIMA
ANTONIO ROSENO DE LIMA(1926-1998 | BRASIL) Antonio Roseno de Lima was born in 1926 in Alexandria (State of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil). His family was modest and for this reason he began working at a very early age, making birdcages, wood objects and spoons. Coming from a family of modest means, he began working […]
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 […]
THE LITTLE CHAPEL
THE LITTLE CHAPEL(1878-1951 | UNITED KINGDOM) The Little Chapel of Les Vauxbelets was rebuilt twice before its creator was satisfied with his work. Brother Déodat joined the Guernsey Christian Schools in 1913 and devoted his life to building a miniature replica of the Basilica and Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. The first chapel measured less than […]
BRUNO MONTPIED
BRUNO MONTPIED(1954 | FRANCE) Bruno Montpied was born in 1954 in Boulogne-sur-Seine. He now lives in Paris where he makes a living as a monitor of extracurricular school activities. At the age of twenty he was inspired by surrealism and he began painting and drawing three years later after meeting Asger Jorn and the COBRA […]
EIJIRO MIYAMA
EIJIRO MIYAMA(1934 | JAPAN) Eijiro Miyama is often referred to as Bōshi Ojisan (“Hat Man”) due to his habit of riding his bicycle around the streets of Yokohama wearing eccentric clothing and large, elaborate hats adorned with dolls and other recycled objects. He was born in Mie Prefecture, Japan. A loner, he never married. He […]
PIERRE RAPEAU
Pierre Rapeau, a biology teacher, was born in the Perigord area of France. One day, tired of the world, he returned in the local forest, where he had a lively memory of the walks he made with his grandmother, collecting mushrooms and herbs.
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 […]
POLITICAL SCULPTURE GARDEN
M.T. Liggett’s brightly painted metal cartoon figures dominate the roadside along a busy highway near Mullinville, Kansas, for almost a mile.
SAÏ KIJIMA
SAÏ KIJIMA(JAPAN – SWITZERLAND) Saï Kijima has been living in Europe for 30 years. His present residence is Basel, Switzerland. He devotes his life to Kalado, a unique system founded by himself. Kalado teaching connects art, bodywork, environmental awareness and the philosophy of empty mind. Saï is not related to any religious or cultural system. […]
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 […]
MARKUS MEURER
Markus Meurer grew up in the sixties in a small Eifel valley, at the foot of Monreal castle. Meurer inherited his father’s animistic talents to see living creatures in every object.
SALVATION MOUNTAIN
SALVATION MOUNTAINLEONARD KNIGHT(1931-2014) | USA Leonard Knight began painting and creating his Salvation Mountain after a failed attempt to fly the world’s largest balloon, which he had spent ten years trying to make. Knight decided to stay on in the launch area, in a part of the desert known as “Slab City”. Using hundreds of […]
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 […]
MARIE-ROSE LORTET
MARIE-ROSE LORTET(1945 | FRANCE) Marie-Rose Lortet, originally from Strasbourg, began knitting at an early age, inspired by the tradition which ran throughout the female members of her family. Creating small fabric pictures and textile pieces, her knit work was never of a conventional nature. In 1967, with the attention and encouragement of Jean Dubuffet, Lortet’s […]
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 […]
CARLO TORRIGHELLI
CARLO TORRIGHELLI – C.T.(1909-1983 | ITALY) Carlo Torrighelli, better known as C.T., was an “ante-litteram writer”, active in Milan especially near Castello Sforzesco and Porta Garibaldi Station, at the end of 1970.He was born in Laveno (Lake Maggiore), in 1909. Active in the Resistance as a young man, he moved to Milan after the war, […]
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 […]
EUGENE VON BRUENCHENHEIN
EUGENE VON BRUENCHENHEIN(1910-1983 | USA) Eugene von Bruenchenhein was born and grew up in Marinette (Wisconsin), where he spent most of his working life employed in a bakery. The self-taught artist developed his own unique painting technique: using his fingers to rapidly manipulate the thin wet oil paint, he created magical swirls and twists of bright, […]
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 […]
A.C.M.
A.C.M.(1951 | FRANCE) A very shy child, born in Hargicourt, France, Alfred Marié passed his school certificate to become a house painter. In 1968 he entered the Ecole Régionale Supérieure d’Expression Plastique in Tourcoing. After five years, he abandoned his studies, destroyed his work and attempted suicide. In 1974 he met Corinne, who became his […]
THE OWL HOUSE – HELEN MARTINS
THE OWL HOUSEHELEN MARTINS(1898-1976 | AFRICA) Helen Martins was born in 1897 in Nieu Bethedsa, South Africa, the youngest of six children. She gained a teaching diploma after attending school in Graaff-Reinet and in 1919 moved to the Transvaal to begin working as a teacher.In 1920 Helen married a fellow teacher, Willem Johannes Pienaar. The […]
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
Il suo bisogno espressivo cresce via via assieme alle dimensioni del tratto e alla diversità delle tecniche utilizzate. Il muro supporto senza confine diventa allora il prezioso alleato nella diffusione dei suoi rimati messaggi di pace, che arrivano ormai in tante città Italiane.
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 […]
VILJO GUSTAFSSON
VILJO GUSTAFSSON(1927-1994 | FINLAND) Viljo Gustafsson lived an isolated life in a small cottage in Karkkila, Finland. A labourer who suffered from alcoholism, Gustafsson was familiar with social misery and loneliness. Art was a means to ease his condition allowing him to explore the misery of life and death remaining an ambivalent figure, represented in […]
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 […]
DANIELLE JACQUI
Established in Pont de l’Etoile in her somewhat surprising home, which serves as studio, museum and living space, Jacqui, painter and ceramic artist arouses everyone’s curiosity.
ALBERT LOUDEN
Nel 1981 Louden vide una vecchia pubblicità della mostra “Outsiders” tenuta nel 1979 alla Hayward Gallery di Londra e contattò il co-curatore Victor Musgrave.
ELLEN GREENE
ELLEN GREENE(1975 | USA) “I see the gloves as representative of social norms– conformity and chastity. The tattoo images represent the underside or shadow experience of that woman who wore those gloves.” Ellen Greene Ellen Greene combines the feminine tradition of wearing white gloves with the masculine tattoo art. Blending purity, formality and rebellion, she […]
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 […]
THE MINDFIELD
William Blevins (Billy) Tripp, born 1955 in Jackson, Tennessee, is a nationally known practitioner of outsider art as well as the author of numerous poems and a novel, “The Mindfield Years”, published in 1996.
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 […]
PASCAL TASSINI
PASCAL TASSINI(1955| BELGIUM) Pascal Tassini was born in Belgium in 1955 in a family of three children. He lived with his parents until they died, when one of his brothers took responsibility for him and sent him to the Créahm workshops in Liège in 1986.Tassini began working with clay before trying his hand at drawing and painting. […]
BRUNO WEBER
In 1962, Bruno Weber decided to create a great sculpture garden near Zürich, envisaged as a “visionary counterworld”.
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 […]
TOM DUNCAN
TOM DUNCAN(1939 | SCOTLAND – USA) “I was born in Scotland at the start of World War II; growing up I wasn’t aware that anything was wrong. If I had been born in peacetime maybe I would have noticed a difference. When I went to school my history lessons just confirmed that war was a […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
HORST ADEMEIT
Cologne in 1937. Trained as a textile designer, he entered Joseph Beuys’ class at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf in the late 1960. Here his works were rejected because too conservative and academic; this fact led him to left the total art world.
MR. IMAGINATION
MR. IMAGINATION(1948-2012 | USA) Gregory Warmack è nato nel 1948 a Chicago, terzo di nove figli e ha trascorso la sua infanzia nella degradata South Side di Chicago.Collezionista incallito di pietre, perline, bigiotteria e miriadi di oggetti inutilizzati, Warmack ha iniziato a creare e vendere gioielli nella tarda adolescenza. Scolpiva anche pezzi di corteccia, legno […]
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 […]
ANNUNZIO LAGOMARSINI
ANNUNZIO LAGOMARSINI(1932-2018| ITALY) Annunzio Lagomarsini has worked for many years in the family building company. Since 1977, for seven years, he created his “flying house” near LaSpezia, Liguria, where he lived with his wife. He used rejects from the building sites or shipyards, for the creation of a 110 square meters house, complete with hook […]
DALTON GHETTI
DALTON GHETTI(1961 | AMERICA) Dalton Ghetti was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and he came to the U.S. in 1985. He now works as a carpenter and he’s a self-taught artist: he “sharpens” pencils as a meditation.He began learning how to handle tools at the young age of 6 when at school in […]
STANISLAW ZAGAJEWSKI
STANISLAW ZAGAJEWSKI(1927-2008| POLAND) Stanislaw Zagajewski was abandoned by his mother at the age of two in front of a Church in Warsaw, Poland. Then he was placed in various orphanages, and he later trained as a mason before being employed in stucco restoration in the old city of Warsaw.Parallel to this, he started to model […]
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, […]
PRADEEP KUMAR
PRADEEP KUMAR(1973 | INDIA) Pradeep Kumar grew up in Narwana, India. Born deaf and partially mute, his father was determinate to give his son an education, having sensed Kumar’s innate talent from a very young age. He is presently employed as a clerk at the Punjab National Bank in Narwana.Kumar developed his artistic skills without […]
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 […]
UMBERTO GERVASI
UMBERTO GERVASI(1939 | ITALY) Umberto Gervasi was born in Catania, Sicily. His parents were confectioners that produced local sweets sold at popular fairs.At the age of 14 he began working as a bricklayer, and at the age of 28 he moved to Sesto San Giovanni (Milan), where he worked as a metalworker in a great […]
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 […]
RICHARD GREAVES
Greaves makes this structures in three stages: first he takes them apart, piece by piece; then he takes the various components back to his site; and, finally, he rebuilds them, alone, in his own way, using no measuring instruments and making use of nylon rope.
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 […]
NEK CHAND
NEK CHAND AND THE ROCK GARDEN(1924 –2015 | CHANDIGARH, INDIA) One of the most enchanting expressions of the outsider art world is visible in Chandigarh and is the result of a single man who was put in the act of transforming the waste of a nascent metropolis into beauty. Nek Chand Saini is an Indian […]
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 […]
MIROSLAV TICHÝ
Miroslav Tichý was a photographer who from the 1960s until 1985 took thousands of pictures of women in his hometown of Kyjow, in the Czech Republic, where he was born in 1926, using homemade cameras constructed of cardboard tubes, tin cans and other at-hand materials.
JUDITH SCOTT
JUDITH SCOTT (1943-2005, USA) Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, into a middle-class family, unlike her twin sister, Judith carried the extra chromosome of Down syndrome. Following an attack of Scarlet Fever in infancy, she also lost her hearing, although this would not be recognized until many years later.Considered “ineducable”, at the age of seven she was […]
The Encyclopedic Garden of ARMAND SCHULTHESS
Swiss born Armand Schulthess he left work in 1951 to retire into a secluded house in Auressio, Canton Tessin. Here he built an incredible garden.
BEN WILSON
Ben Wilson began painting gum in 1998, on Barnet High Street (London), intending to create a trail into the centre of London.
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 […]
SHINICHI SAWADA
SHINICHI SAWADA(1987 | JAPAN) Shinichi Sawada was born in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. Diagnosed as autistic, he found employment in the hospital bakery of the Ritto Nakayoshi Sagyojo (institute for the mentally disabled, in the city of Kusatsu). In 2001, the professor directing the workshop where Sawada worked with clay, launched the construction of a small […]
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.
MORTON BARTLETT
The self-taught artist Morton Bartlett, orphaned at the age of eight – like the compared Henry Darger – was adopted by a wealthy couple of Massachusetts. They permitted him to enrolled at Philipps Exter Academy and Harvard University, that he left for bec