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.
TAKE US TO BOTCHY-BOTCHY’S PAINTED CHAMBER

some text here“Botchy-Botchy” is the nom d'artiste of a Tokyo-based, French-born painter who has lived many years in Japan. A former corporate type, he now devotes his time to art, including an unusual mural — a hot-pink baccahanal — which we saw in situ. Free access to this article.
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BY THE TIME WE GET TO PHOENIX, THEY’LL BE SHOWING MODERN JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY

The exhibition Farewell Photography: The Hitachi Collection of Postwar Japanese Photographs, 1961-1989, at the Phoenix Art Museum, showcases era-defining images from the modernist, postwar period in Japan. Sarah Fensom, brutjournal's U.S.A. West Coast bureau chief, reports.
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TODAY'S ART DISCOVERY

As Cathy Ward reported in a feature article in brutjournal’s December 2021 issue, in the far north of England, the artist-designer Tod Hanson has been transforming the interiors of Waxwing, his Georgian-era home, into dazzling, painted spaces. Now we learn that the unusual house is for sale. Asking price: 400,000 British pounds. There are still several rooms to go. Will the magical transformation continue? Photo by Cathy Ward. See our earlier article here. Listing agent's description of the property here.
TOKYO EXHIBITION: GETTING TO KNOW "MOM’S ART"

Tokyo Shibuya Koen-dori Gallery is an art space whose exhibitions highlight the work of self-taught, art brut, and outsider artists. Its current exhibition features unusual craft works made by Japanese senior citizens. See our eye-popping photos of “Mom’s art.” Kanpai!
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AKIRA SHIMIZU: MODERN MASTER OF COLLAGE

Born in 1938 in Toyama, a coastal city in west-central Japan, Akira Shimizu is an important Japanese modern artist who never followed any art movement. His individualism comes across in his strange and elegant collages. A visit with the artist at his home near Tokyo.
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