I have to begin this review by saying that I’m a little upset. This collection of outsider art was at the Jundt Art Museum of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington where I live - and I missed it. The funny thing is, my biggest complaint about this book is that some of the art pictured in the book is just to small to see well and to appreciate. Obviously if I had gone to the exhibit, I could of studied each piece in leisure and in depth. However, the photos that are large enough to view adequately are a window into that strange world of religious art whose traditions go back millenniums.
Carl Mullis is an avid collector of 20th Century art. He ventured into the folk art field because it is more affordable than art done by better known regionalists, yet Mullis was also drawn by the color, drama, and emotion of these self taught artists. Many of the works in this book drew a strong emotional response from me. The childlike simplicity of Hugo Spear’s work, Creation, 1977 has a delightful joyous quality. The animals seem to line up and watch in fascination as a muscular God shows the crying Adam and Eve the way out of Paradise. Howard Finister’s From Earth to Hell is appropriately scarey. Although the book does not do his painting justice, I discovered that I could go on-line and find much bigger pictures of his work. (Apparently he has a number of paintings of hell - I think his work is brilliant.) The saddest piece is without doubt Annie Wellborn’s Annies Angles {her spelling}. It shows a young girl in an open coffin with two joyous angels above. It looks like it was painted on wallpaper or wrapping paper of upside down flowers. Despite the sadness of a young person’s funeral, the painting manages to convey a new possibilities after death.
Many of the art pieces contain writing and some of the artist/writers are of obviously limited education. The written word is, however, an essential part the pictures. The Devil’s Vice, also by Finster, is a “sermon in paint.” The man who is caught in this literal shop tool has his many sins revealed in writing on the vice itself. The popularity of “self taught” artists can be fully appreciated when compared alongside someone like Jean Michel Basquiat whose fame and reputation in the art world only continues to rise. (His paintings regularly sell for over 10 million dollars.) Like these Southern self taught artists, Basquiat’s neo expressionist painting also combine iconographic symbols, words, and images that suggest layers of meaning. If a Basquiat had been included in this exhibit, it would certainly not have seemed out of place.
In an effort of full disclosure, I too am a self taught artist that paints and does collages of religiously themed art, filled with angels and words. So I feel like I am writing about my compadres here. Mullis attributes the Southern background of these artists as their commonality. I, however, find a different interconnectedness. When I look at most of these works, I have not only an instantaneous recognition of what they are trying to express, but I also recognize their slightly screwed mindset. There's something strange about the worlds these artists are portraying: faces in clouds and eyes on angels’ robes, demon dogs and superhero artists, crucifixion scenes with polar bears or in cotton fields. These are bizarre images, and I suspect that it is this lack of normalcy, that makes up quite a bit of their charm. The world of these artists for me is not about regionalism in the sense of North or South, but more about regions seen with eyes of the flesh or eyes of the spirit. This is a fun art book, which in itself is a rarity, and makes it worth the purchase.
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