brutjournal – outsider art • art brut • the unclassifiable • the avant-avant-garde

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THE BROOKLYN-BASED PAINTER STEVE KEENE IS ONE OF THE MOST PROLIFIC ARTISTS ANYWHERE. WORKING OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM, COMMERCIAL-GALLERY SYSTEM, HE HAS DEVELOPED A UNIQUE APPROACH TO SELLING AND MARKETING HIS WORK — AND ATTRACTED DEVOTED COLLECTORS EVERYWHERE. SEE OUR LOOK AT THE FIRST-EVER BOOK FOCUSING ON THIS CREATIVE POWERHOUSE WITH A PAINTBRUSH. SEE THE BIG PAGE.

IN THIS ISSUE, DON’T MISS THESE FEATURES

Editor’s letter

What the heck is brutjournal?
by Edward M. Gómez

Discover the trove of picture postcards produced decades ago by the photographer Merle Porter (1907-1988), which documented in unexpected ways the landscape and built environment of the American West.
by Sarah Fensom

A new book examines the thousands of anonymously produced carvings on the barrier rocks along the city’s Lake Michigan shoreline. Vernacular art for the ages!

United Kingdom

The image collector-curator Stephen Ellcock and writer Mat Osman have created a vivid portrait of their homeland, in a range of unusual pictures and photos. Their new book: England on Fire.

STICK IT TO ’EM: EXPLORING THE ART OF COLLAGE

The techniques and aesthetics of collage, plus the outlook on the world that collage-making nurtures, are deeply rooted in the history of modern art. The expressive power and wide-open creative license that collage offers continue to appeal to artists everywhere. This month, we look at the work and sources of inspiration of a wide variety of clever collage-makers. Free access to this article.

COLLAGE ART: GEE VAUCHER’S CLASSIC TOUCH

Gee Vaucher, who is based in rural England, began making collages in the mid-1970s. Her crisp, photo-based compositions feature clever, gently subversive combinations and juxtapositions of images. She works in a range of materials and genres, doing “whatever it takes,” as she says, to convey her thoughts. Free access to this article.

COLLAGE’S MYSTERIOUS REALM: GEORGANNE DEEN

Georganne Deen, who lives and works in Joshua Tree, California, uses collage as a way to escape the dictates of her own hand when making paintings or work in other genres — “when my own style gets in the way,” as she says. Her work is shot through with a sense of the psychic and of suspended time. We check in with this powerful conjurer of visual delights.

COLLAGE ART: CATHY WARD’S “PAGAN LOVE GODS”

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Cathy Ward, brutjournal’s London-based artist-correspondent, lived and worked in New York, where she soaked up the city’s sometimes exuberant, sometimes sinister atmosphere. She produced several series of collage works filled with sexual energy and urban angst. Here, we examine these strange, potent images.

MERLE PORTER’S ROYAL PICTURES POSTCARDS: THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE BANAL IN THE AMERICAN WEST

Merle Porter (1907-1988) was a photographer and manufacturer of postcards who traveled by car throughout the American West, shooting photos of the land, monuments, and sometimes the most ordinary, unassuming buildings. His Royal Pictures brand sold millions of picture postcards. Sarah Fensom, brutjournal's Los Angeles-based U.S.A. West Coast bureau chief, takes a look at an exhibition of Porter's photo cards, which together constitute a unique artistic-scientific-historical document. Free access to this article.

ESTHER MENA PÉREZ: AN ART ENVIRONMENT IN SPAIN

Born in 1932, Esther Mena Pérez grew up during the tumultuous period of the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Defying conservative expectations regarding women in Spanish society, she charted her own creative course, transforming her home in a small town, with painted stones and found materials, into a highly decorated art environment.

VIEW THE FILM: “VALTON TYLER: FLESH IS FICTION”

The self-taught artist Valton Tyler (1944-2017) lived and worked in Dallas, Texas, and its environs. He created remarkable works — oil paintings, ink drawings on paper, complex etchings — that remain hard to classify according to existing style or genre labels. In 2017, Edward M. Gómez (brutjournal’s founder) and cinematographer Chris Shields made the first-ever film about Tyler’s life and art, which the artist saw before he died. This 42-minute-long film will reside permanently here, on the magazine’s website. It may be viewed in its entirety, free of charge. Watch it and get to know the bright, bizarre world of a techno-baroque visionary. Free access to this article and the film.