outsider art • art brut • the unclassifiable • the avant-avant-garde
• November 10, 2024 •
WELCOME TO brutjournal!
SO EXACTLY WHAT ARE WE UP TO HERE?
WELL WE’RE INTERESTED IN FORMS OF ART AND CULTURAL EXPRESSION THAT BREAK THE MOLD; THAT ARE FRESH, DIFFERENT, EXPERIMENTAL, DARING, AND DEFY FAMILIAR LABELS; AND THAT, FOR ALL THEIR INNOVATION OR FAR-OUT FORM, UNABASHEDLY CELEBRATE AND REAFFIRM THE HUMAN SPIRIT.
SOUND GOOD?
The image collector-curator Stephen Ellcock has teamed up with the writer (and the rock band Suede’s bassist) Mat Osman to offer a portrait in unusual, unexpected pictures of their homeland in their new book, Made in England (published in the United Kingdom and the United States by Watkins Publishing). In his introduction to the book, Osman notes that the images Ellcock has compiled in its pages are “more furious and magical than any Shakespeare play.” Above: the new book’s cover and, right, the oil-on-panel painting “Skull Vision, 1943, by the artist Michael Ayrton (1921-1975). Photos courtesy of Watkins Publishing
STEPHEN ELLCOCK & MAT OSMAN’S NEW BOOK: ENGLAND ON FIRE