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Raw Vision Magazine #85, Spring 2015
Mary Barnes: Boo-Bah, The Nunnery, Bow Arts, London, 16 January - 29 March 2015
The works in this exhibition, created by prolific outsider artist Mary Barnes (1923 - 2001), were predominantly from the collection of Dr Joseph Berke, Barnes' therapist and friend. The show was named in honour of the pair's relationship, following Barnes' nicknaming of Berke "Boo-Bah" in a metre-high love letter that appeared in the Nunnery display.
Barnes' close relationship with Berke came after she moved to Kingsley Hall in 1965, following a diagnosis of schizophrenia. At Kingsley Hall, she joined the Philadelphia Association which was an alternative treatment community created by psychiatrist R. D. Laing and colleagues. At this time, Berke came to work for Laing as a recent graduate. Their bond was strong, and has been immortalised in a book co-authored by the artist and Berke entitled Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness, and dramatised in the play Mary Barnes by David Edgar. It was, in fact, Berke who introduced Barnes to art-making, providing her with crayons and encouraging her to paint with her fingers at the height of her illness.
From the exhibition, it seems Barnes' nature- and religion-inspired works can be split into two distinctive styles. Either dry, scratchy black marks carving out shadows and shapes onto the paper; or bold, gnarled colours through which faces and figures emerge. There were a couple of exceptions to this, namely three paintings in which bright colour bursts outwards, instead of curling and caving inwards. Some longer pieces showed the glimpses of empty paper to be just as much an integral part of the piece as the brushstrokes of paint themselves.
The artist's voice and personality and her relationship with Berke was strong throughout the show, with images narrating her late life, when she would travel the world, lecturing on art and mental health and exhibiting her work. Also a writer and a poet, her words were a prominent part of the show; for example, a piece that saw the merging of visual art and storytelling - aimed at children - that spoke of a baby bear who had experienced a nasty bee sting.
The exhibition was fittingly held in Bow, East London, bringing Barnes' work home to where her artistic career began back in the 1960s.
The works in this exhibition, created by prolific outsider artist Mary Barnes (1923 - 2001), were predominantly from the collection of Dr Joseph Berke, Barnes' therapist and friend. The show was named in honour of the pair's relationship, following Barnes' nicknaming of Berke "Boo-Bah" in a metre-high love letter that appeared in the Nunnery display.
Barnes' close relationship with Berke came after she moved to Kingsley Hall in 1965, following a diagnosis of schizophrenia. At Kingsley Hall, she joined the Philadelphia Association which was an alternative treatment community created by psychiatrist R. D. Laing and colleagues. At this time, Berke came to work for Laing as a recent graduate. Their bond was strong, and has been immortalised in a book co-authored by the artist and Berke entitled Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness, and dramatised in the play Mary Barnes by David Edgar. It was, in fact, Berke who introduced Barnes to art-making, providing her with crayons and encouraging her to paint with her fingers at the height of her illness.
From the exhibition, it seems Barnes' nature- and religion-inspired works can be split into two distinctive styles. Either dry, scratchy black marks carving out shadows and shapes onto the paper; or bold, gnarled colours through which faces and figures emerge. There were a couple of exceptions to this, namely three paintings in which bright colour bursts outwards, instead of curling and caving inwards. Some longer pieces showed the glimpses of empty paper to be just as much an integral part of the piece as the brushstrokes of paint themselves.
The artist's voice and personality and her relationship with Berke was strong throughout the show, with images narrating her late life, when she would travel the world, lecturing on art and mental health and exhibiting her work. Also a writer and a poet, her words were a prominent part of the show; for example, a piece that saw the merging of visual art and storytelling - aimed at children - that spoke of a baby bear who had experienced a nasty bee sting.
The exhibition was fittingly held in Bow, East London, bringing Barnes' work home to where her artistic career began back in the 1960s.
Raw Vision Magazine #82, Summer 2014
War and Trauma: Soldiers and Psychiatrists 1914 - 2014, Museum Dr Guislain, Ghent, Belgium, 1 November 2013 - 30 June 2014
The Museum Dr Guislain in Ghent is an eerily fitting home for 'Soldiers and Psychiatrists 1914 - 2014.' a cacophony of experiences created by servicemen and ex-servicemen, the exhibition focuses on the mental and physical consequences of war over the last century whilst shedding light on discussions between physicians, servicemen, political leaders, the media, scientists and artists.
Several works are on loan from the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg, which sit alongside pieces by 'mainstream' artists, such as Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing. This pairing is particularly poignant because war is perhaps one of few human experiences where - for both service-people and civilians - sanity becomes a grey area. Particularly so during the First World War, when shell-shock and post-traumatic stress disorder were greeted with deep mistrust and suspicion before - in somewhat of a breakthrough - the diagnosed were handed over to medical professionals.
Several of the Prinzhorn artists had been killed under the euthanasia scheme established by the National Socialists between 1939 and 1945. In fact, Franz Karl Buhler's work itself had been, to his psychiatrists, one of the pointers of his deteriorating mental health, eventually resulting in his execution (although the official cause of death was a cardiac muscle disease). It is somewhat of a victory that these works have such precedence here. After all, during the Second World War the Collection was used to illustrate the term 'degenerate' and paraded in front of the German public in Entartete Kunst in 1937.
In a moving way, 'Soldiers and Psychiatrists' illuminates the hinterland between mental ill-health and simply 'being human,' but above all, the exhibition succeeds in evoking empathy for the way in which people attempted to relieve a universal suffering.
The Museum Dr Guislain in Ghent is an eerily fitting home for 'Soldiers and Psychiatrists 1914 - 2014.' a cacophony of experiences created by servicemen and ex-servicemen, the exhibition focuses on the mental and physical consequences of war over the last century whilst shedding light on discussions between physicians, servicemen, political leaders, the media, scientists and artists.
Several works are on loan from the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg, which sit alongside pieces by 'mainstream' artists, such as Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing. This pairing is particularly poignant because war is perhaps one of few human experiences where - for both service-people and civilians - sanity becomes a grey area. Particularly so during the First World War, when shell-shock and post-traumatic stress disorder were greeted with deep mistrust and suspicion before - in somewhat of a breakthrough - the diagnosed were handed over to medical professionals.
Several of the Prinzhorn artists had been killed under the euthanasia scheme established by the National Socialists between 1939 and 1945. In fact, Franz Karl Buhler's work itself had been, to his psychiatrists, one of the pointers of his deteriorating mental health, eventually resulting in his execution (although the official cause of death was a cardiac muscle disease). It is somewhat of a victory that these works have such precedence here. After all, during the Second World War the Collection was used to illustrate the term 'degenerate' and paraded in front of the German public in Entartete Kunst in 1937.
In a moving way, 'Soldiers and Psychiatrists' illuminates the hinterland between mental ill-health and simply 'being human,' but above all, the exhibition succeeds in evoking empathy for the way in which people attempted to relieve a universal suffering.
Raw Vision Magazine #80, Winter 2013
Epiphanies! Secrets of Outsider Art, Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital, London, 26 September - 28 November 2013
Sue Kreitzman, a self-proclaimed 'Outsider Curator', and an outsider artist in her own right, is the co-curator of the very refreshing 'Epiphanies! Secrets of Outsider Art.' The show reveals works covering an impressive range of content, media and style by almost 25 artists, all of whom Kreitzman has personally befriended.
The works on display are movingly personal. There are dark, disturbed ink drawings, like the work of Judith McNicol; a former earth scientist who began intuitively exploring interior worlds after she became ill with M.E., as well as beautifully naive pieces, such as that of Joe Gagliano, who is influenced by vintage kitsch and his strong Catholic faith. Liz Parkinson's faces reflect the artist's feelings at the moment of creation, and Mista Fig's - predominantly unseen - adorned sculptures are born out of the pin and pleasure of his own life. There is a sketchbook by ex-Stuckist Sexton Ming never originally intended for display; a private presentation documenting his mental health and the parallel journey through the creative process.
There is humour as well, in the form of Kate Bradbury's 'Goats', which were brought to life after Bradbury happened upon fifty disembodied 'goats' heads at a local car boot sale. She gifted them bodies in the form of old musical instruments or the bristles of garden brushes in the hope that one day they might master the Holler and alert a distant herdsman to their whereabouts. This type of narrative epitomises the incredible imagination on display here. Untouched by the commercially driven mainstream art world, this is raw art at its best. The works on display are personal narratives, presenting tangible embodiments of angst and unrestrained creativity.
Sue Kreitzman, a self-proclaimed 'Outsider Curator', and an outsider artist in her own right, is the co-curator of the very refreshing 'Epiphanies! Secrets of Outsider Art.' The show reveals works covering an impressive range of content, media and style by almost 25 artists, all of whom Kreitzman has personally befriended.
The works on display are movingly personal. There are dark, disturbed ink drawings, like the work of Judith McNicol; a former earth scientist who began intuitively exploring interior worlds after she became ill with M.E., as well as beautifully naive pieces, such as that of Joe Gagliano, who is influenced by vintage kitsch and his strong Catholic faith. Liz Parkinson's faces reflect the artist's feelings at the moment of creation, and Mista Fig's - predominantly unseen - adorned sculptures are born out of the pin and pleasure of his own life. There is a sketchbook by ex-Stuckist Sexton Ming never originally intended for display; a private presentation documenting his mental health and the parallel journey through the creative process.
There is humour as well, in the form of Kate Bradbury's 'Goats', which were brought to life after Bradbury happened upon fifty disembodied 'goats' heads at a local car boot sale. She gifted them bodies in the form of old musical instruments or the bristles of garden brushes in the hope that one day they might master the Holler and alert a distant herdsman to their whereabouts. This type of narrative epitomises the incredible imagination on display here. Untouched by the commercially driven mainstream art world, this is raw art at its best. The works on display are personal narratives, presenting tangible embodiments of angst and unrestrained creativity.
Raw Vision Magazine #79, Summer 2013
Alternative Guide to the Universe, Hayward Gallery, London, 11 June - 26 August 2013
Thirty-four years after it hosted the UK's first major exhibition of outsider art, the Hayward Gallery once again offered an alternative view of the world. Numbers, theories, futuristic architecture, new methods of healing; all things we expect from the brightest international minds. But in this alternative guide they come from equally bright but self-taught visionaries and self-proclaimed scientists, physicists, and architects, with a cameo from 'The Museum of Everything' who presented works by renowned Indian artist Nek Chand.
The journey through time and space began with the works of George Widener and Alfred Jensen as they explore and re-create the meaning behind numbers, codes, and calendars. Jensen was inspired by Pythagoras, Ancient Chinese, the Maya number systems, and Egyptian and Greek cultures - a far cry from the culturally excluded outsider described by Jean Dubuffet.
With a whole section dedicated to 'Fringe Physicists', along with James Carter's 'Periodic Table of Elements' and examples of alternative and holistic medicinal practices, the sciences form a large part of the exhibition. Emery Blagdon's 'Healing Machine' discards modern medicine by promoting the curative powers of the Earth's energies, and Guo Fengyi's 'painted prescriptions' depict energy flowing through the human body. In her eyes, they are instruments of healing.
Examples of 'outsider photography' include the humorous works of Chicago artist Lee Godie, who 'edited' her photo-booth pictures with a dash of lipstick here, or a darker eyebrow there, and Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's obsessive 1940's pin-up inspired depictions of his wife, Marie. Well known outsider artist Morton Bartlett's anatomically correct hand-made dolls are also represented in photographic form, with just one of the accomplished sculptures in-situ.
But it is Marcel Storr's towering utopias and quixotic architectural creations that really steal the show. Beautifully lit, the meticulously drawn buildings and palatial cathedrals tower above futuristic cities where the growing craze for skyscrapers seems to reach new, dizzying levels in such a way that for a brief moment, Storr's post-Holocaustal Parisian structures seem possible. Similarly, William Scott's urban re-imaginings of San Francisco - newly named 'Praise Frisco' by the artist - nudge at a deep desire for an alternative, exuberant world that chooses the church over corporate capitalism.
The exhibition is a display of the power of imagination, most aptly illustrated by 'gothic futurist' and hip-hop pioneer Rammellzee's 'Letter Racers', which depicts how the alphabet might look if the letters were to become mechanised and able to fly into battle. It is an innovative combination of art and science and re-imagined worlds, of artists and inventors who want to better understand the universe.
Thirty-four years after it hosted the UK's first major exhibition of outsider art, the Hayward Gallery once again offered an alternative view of the world. Numbers, theories, futuristic architecture, new methods of healing; all things we expect from the brightest international minds. But in this alternative guide they come from equally bright but self-taught visionaries and self-proclaimed scientists, physicists, and architects, with a cameo from 'The Museum of Everything' who presented works by renowned Indian artist Nek Chand.
The journey through time and space began with the works of George Widener and Alfred Jensen as they explore and re-create the meaning behind numbers, codes, and calendars. Jensen was inspired by Pythagoras, Ancient Chinese, the Maya number systems, and Egyptian and Greek cultures - a far cry from the culturally excluded outsider described by Jean Dubuffet.
With a whole section dedicated to 'Fringe Physicists', along with James Carter's 'Periodic Table of Elements' and examples of alternative and holistic medicinal practices, the sciences form a large part of the exhibition. Emery Blagdon's 'Healing Machine' discards modern medicine by promoting the curative powers of the Earth's energies, and Guo Fengyi's 'painted prescriptions' depict energy flowing through the human body. In her eyes, they are instruments of healing.
Examples of 'outsider photography' include the humorous works of Chicago artist Lee Godie, who 'edited' her photo-booth pictures with a dash of lipstick here, or a darker eyebrow there, and Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's obsessive 1940's pin-up inspired depictions of his wife, Marie. Well known outsider artist Morton Bartlett's anatomically correct hand-made dolls are also represented in photographic form, with just one of the accomplished sculptures in-situ.
But it is Marcel Storr's towering utopias and quixotic architectural creations that really steal the show. Beautifully lit, the meticulously drawn buildings and palatial cathedrals tower above futuristic cities where the growing craze for skyscrapers seems to reach new, dizzying levels in such a way that for a brief moment, Storr's post-Holocaustal Parisian structures seem possible. Similarly, William Scott's urban re-imaginings of San Francisco - newly named 'Praise Frisco' by the artist - nudge at a deep desire for an alternative, exuberant world that chooses the church over corporate capitalism.
The exhibition is a display of the power of imagination, most aptly illustrated by 'gothic futurist' and hip-hop pioneer Rammellzee's 'Letter Racers', which depicts how the alphabet might look if the letters were to become mechanised and able to fly into battle. It is an innovative combination of art and science and re-imagined worlds, of artists and inventors who want to better understand the universe.
Raw Vision Magazine #77, Winter 2012/2013
Jean Dubuffet, Pallant House Gallery, 19 October 2012 - 3 February 2013
A part of Pallant House Gallery's 'Art from the Margins' season, and accompanying the Outside In: National exhibition, is a display of works from Jean Dubuffet's L' Hourloupe series. Dubuffet is best known for coining the term Art Brut in 1945 prior to publishing Notice sur la Compagnie de l'Art Brut in 1948. Dubuffet's aim with this manifesto was perhaps to undermine the authority of the 'professional' art world, whilst championing artists he considered to be outside and untouched by 'the system'; undoubtedly, his own work was very much influenced by the non-professional and self-taught artists whose raw expression he ardently sought out.
Organised with the assistance of the Fondation Dubuffet in Paris, the exhibition features key paintings, drawings and sculptures by this highly influential artist. Dubuffet began his L' Hourloupe sequence in 1962, gaining inspiration for the title of the series from a contemporary book which featured drawings in red and blue ball point pens. The pieces in the exhibition seem to take a lesson from the naive work championed by Dubuffet himself; they are an illustration of the badly founded distinction we as humans make between the real and the imaginary.
As one of the original and avid supporters of 'art from the margins', it seems incredibly apt for Pallant House Gallery to be exhibiting Dubuffet's work; the first time for fifty years that his has been shown in a British museum. Accompanying his paintings are a collection of posters and catalogues from previous Dubuffet exhibitions held in Britain, at the Tate, ICA and the pioneering Robert Fraser Gallery who first showed Dubuffet's work in London in the 1960s.
A part of Pallant House Gallery's 'Art from the Margins' season, and accompanying the Outside In: National exhibition, is a display of works from Jean Dubuffet's L' Hourloupe series. Dubuffet is best known for coining the term Art Brut in 1945 prior to publishing Notice sur la Compagnie de l'Art Brut in 1948. Dubuffet's aim with this manifesto was perhaps to undermine the authority of the 'professional' art world, whilst championing artists he considered to be outside and untouched by 'the system'; undoubtedly, his own work was very much influenced by the non-professional and self-taught artists whose raw expression he ardently sought out.
Organised with the assistance of the Fondation Dubuffet in Paris, the exhibition features key paintings, drawings and sculptures by this highly influential artist. Dubuffet began his L' Hourloupe sequence in 1962, gaining inspiration for the title of the series from a contemporary book which featured drawings in red and blue ball point pens. The pieces in the exhibition seem to take a lesson from the naive work championed by Dubuffet himself; they are an illustration of the badly founded distinction we as humans make between the real and the imaginary.
As one of the original and avid supporters of 'art from the margins', it seems incredibly apt for Pallant House Gallery to be exhibiting Dubuffet's work; the first time for fifty years that his has been shown in a British museum. Accompanying his paintings are a collection of posters and catalogues from previous Dubuffet exhibitions held in Britain, at the Tate, ICA and the pioneering Robert Fraser Gallery who first showed Dubuffet's work in London in the 1960s.
Raw Vision Magazine #77, Winter 2012/2013
Outside In: National, Pallant House Gallery, 27 October 2012 - 3 February 2013
The Outside In: National exhibition is currently taking pride of place at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester; South East England's home of Modern British art. The exhibition is made up of eighty works by artists fitting the Outside In criteria; those who find it difficult to access the art world due to mental health reasons, disability, social circumstance, or perhaps because their work does not conform to what is generally thought of as 'art'. There were more then 2300 submissions from artists throughout the UK, which were then narrowed down to the final 80.
The resulting display is ground-breaking; it is one of the rare occasions that work created by artists mainly without formal art training has been given centre-stage at an institution as nationally prominent as Pallant House Gallery. The first room is home to Michelle Robert's Musicians and Manuel Lanca Bonifaco's Mermaid; two of the six award winners selected from the final eighty by Roger Cardinal, Bobby Baker and Pallant House Gallery Director, Stefan van Raay. The broody, moody central room showcases works including Terence Wilde's The Bandit; a piece which Wilde describes as a 'finger up to the past', and award winner Nigel Kingsbury's Woman, emerging ethereally from individual pencil strokes. Art Historian Roger Cardinal states that the works within this exhibition are 'expressions of individuality, pledges of intent, claims upon our time'; these they are indeed, but also, they show that creativity is everywhere. Art is not, and should not, solely be the domain of the tutored; creativity is essentially within us all. Outside In: National is not just an exhibition of art of an exemplary standard, it is an exhibition of the innately human, and for that reason, it is impossible for it not to resonate with every one of us.
The Outside In: National exhibition is currently taking pride of place at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester; South East England's home of Modern British art. The exhibition is made up of eighty works by artists fitting the Outside In criteria; those who find it difficult to access the art world due to mental health reasons, disability, social circumstance, or perhaps because their work does not conform to what is generally thought of as 'art'. There were more then 2300 submissions from artists throughout the UK, which were then narrowed down to the final 80.
The resulting display is ground-breaking; it is one of the rare occasions that work created by artists mainly without formal art training has been given centre-stage at an institution as nationally prominent as Pallant House Gallery. The first room is home to Michelle Robert's Musicians and Manuel Lanca Bonifaco's Mermaid; two of the six award winners selected from the final eighty by Roger Cardinal, Bobby Baker and Pallant House Gallery Director, Stefan van Raay. The broody, moody central room showcases works including Terence Wilde's The Bandit; a piece which Wilde describes as a 'finger up to the past', and award winner Nigel Kingsbury's Woman, emerging ethereally from individual pencil strokes. Art Historian Roger Cardinal states that the works within this exhibition are 'expressions of individuality, pledges of intent, claims upon our time'; these they are indeed, but also, they show that creativity is everywhere. Art is not, and should not, solely be the domain of the tutored; creativity is essentially within us all. Outside In: National is not just an exhibition of art of an exemplary standard, it is an exhibition of the innately human, and for that reason, it is impossible for it not to resonate with every one of us.