THIS IS THE PLACE FOR DISCOVERIES AND DISCUSSIONS OF THE MOST INVENTIVE ART FORMS – ALL KINDS OF ART THAT IS FAR-OUT, FANTASTIC, FREE-SPIRITED, FUN, FUNKY, PHENOMENAL AND GOOD FOR THE SOUL.
RECENT FEATURES
**ROB OBER: NO IDEOLOGY, PLEASE. THIS ART IS REAL.
“I am suspicious of art informed or directed by ideas or any ideology,” the American artist Rob Ober says. Keeping it real, authentic, shot through with a real pulse, and wildly colorful, Ober’s work feels irresistibly spontaneous and fresh. See. React. Paint. Here, the artist, who grew up all over the place, shares some thoughts about his art. Note to self: We’re in love with those gators. Click here to see article.
**JAMAICAN INTUITIVES: IT’S RAS DIZZY’S WORLD
Ras Dizzy (circa 1932-2008) was one of the most important of the Jamaican Intuitives, a group of self-taught artists whose works began to earn recognition in Jamaica in the late 1970s and notably contributed to shaping a sense of the postcolonial, independent island country’s national cultural identity. A selection of Dizzy’s works from a unique private collection. Click here to see article.
**A BIG, BOLD NEW BOOK: FRANÇOIS JAUVION’S TRIBUTE TO ART BRUT AND OUTSIDER ART MASTERS
In 2020, the French artist François Jauvion’s large-format book L’imagier singulier was published. It featured his own illustrations and texts by various specialists about the lives and accomplishments of numerous art brut and outsider artists. Now, a second volume of Jauvion’s big opus is here. See our overview of L’imagier singulier, Tome 2. Click here to see article.
**ARTIST CATHY WARD: IN LONDON, THE PSYCHIC, SOULFUL MESSAGES OF “THE ORACLES”
Like many art-makers, what with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic period and other concerns, the London-based artist Cathy Ward, who works in various media and genres, has wrestled with numerous, big challenges. Recently, as if purging the negative energy surrounding her, Ward sat down in a corner of her home to create a series of bold, mystical paintings. “They allowed me to reset myself,” she says. See a portfolio of these powerful new pictures. Click here to see article.
**PHOTOGRAPHER JOEL SIMPSON: CAPTURING NATURE’S BIZARRE CREATIVE SPIRIT — AND POWER
The photographer Joel Simpson travels widely in search of unusual natural rock formations and strange textures in the surface of the earth. Here, a selection of new photos from Simpson’s latest expeditions to the Southwest of the U.S.A. illustrates a theoretical approach he has developed to appreciating such striking images. As he notes, it leads viewers “from traditional landscape through abstraction, figuration, and finally to fiction." Click here to see article.
**OFF THE WALL: NEW YORK CITY STREET POETS AND VISIONARIES, THE KENNETH GOLDSMITH COLLECTION
In the 1980s, Kenneth Goldsmith, a poet and university professor, began tearing off anonymously made, handwritten ads, religious-themed proclamations, and oddball declarations that he found posted on walls and lampposts on the streets of New York City. A bemusing selection of such bizarre “poetry” was recently shown at Andrew Edlin Gallery. Click here to see article.
**GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: EMMANUEL HERZ’S JELLYFISH INVASION
Earlier this year, at the café/restaurant Remor in Geneva, Switzerland, we stumbled upon a stunning display of Emmanuel Herz’s festive “Fascinantes Méduses” (“Fascinating Jellyfish”), a group of sculptures and paintings that had taken over the old joint’s ceiling lamps and walls. We were smitten — and maybe also bitten. See out photo-filled report. Click here to see article.
RAVEN. ROOK. CROW. THE ARTIST MIMI YOUNG FLIES INTO THE REALM OF ARTISTS’ BOOKS
The artist Mimi Young comes from the world of fashion styling and is known for her abstract paintings, drawings, and assemblage sculptures. Lately, she has discovered the challenge — and excitement — of creating one-of-a-kind artist’s books.
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IN TOKYO, A CELEBRATION OF SELF-TAUGHT ARTISTS’ CREATIVE ENERGY AND IDEAS
BiG-i, an Osaka-based cultural center serving disabled people, their families, and professionals who work with the special-needs community, has again teamed up with Bunkamura, a cultural center in Tokyo’s dynamic Shibuya district, to present an annual exhibition of works made by contributors to an international, juried art competition sponsored by the two organizations. The works on display offer many delightful discoveries. See our photo-filled report. Free-access article.
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WHAT MICHAEL NEWMAN KNOWS: DISPATCH FROM A VETERAN EXPLORER OF THE LANGUAGE OF ABSTRACTION
Over the past year or so, the American artist Michael Newman has been sending us photos of his newest paintings as they have emerged from his studio in Hualien, a city on the east coast of the island of Taiwan. In a dispatch from his base in East Asia, he shares a selection of his newest works, which bring together traditional ink-wash painting techniques and the spirit of modernist abstraction.
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HEKINAN EXHIBITION: ISSEI NISHIMURA CALLS HIS MUSES UP FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA
Issei Nishimura (born 1978) creates drawings and paintings in a wildly expressionistic manner. However, as a new film about his daily life at home and in his studio reveals, an effective, if peculiar, logic lies at the heart of his creation-destruction-creation impulse. Now, an exhibition at an out-of-the-way museum in south-central Japan is showcasing Nishimura’s bold, colorful work of recent years. See Edward M. Gómez’s photo-filled report from this museum in a tranquil setting. Its mission: to mix philosophy and art. Free-access article for a limited time only.
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ERNEST BURDEN III: VISUALIZING IMAGINARY WORLDS
Ernest Burden III is an artist who works in various genres. All of his work is deeply rooted in skillful draftsmanship, including his renderings of well-known architects’ proposed buildings; his own fantasy-architecture images; his “Prisons” series of drawings, which are inspired by his admiration for the “Imaginary Prisons” etchings created by the 18th-century Italian archaeologist, architect, and artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi; and even his illustrations for a children’s book, for which he also wrote the text. This brief introduction to Burden’s work opens the door to more detailed examinations to come of some of his diverse projects.
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Click to see past articles. Newest articles followed by older articles, listed according to their publication dates.
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