The term 'Outsider Art' refers to art that is created by self taught artists who are not part of the established art world. They create artworks outside the conventions of the mainstream scene and are often individuals who have had limited or even no formal art training. The term 'Outsider Art' is often used interchangeably with 'Art Brut' which was coined by the French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet.
Evelyn Reyes (born 1957)
Evelyn Reyes is a contemporary artist who was born in the United States of America in 1957. Reyes' artistic process which has echoes of Outsider Art, involves repeating abstract shapes in oil pastel on paper in order to create a series of minimal but powerful drawings. Working on one specific shape at a time, her abstract depictions include carrots, fences, cakes, garbage cans and rubber bands. The artist will begin with a specifically sized piece of paper. Next she will choose a particular shade of oil pastel, outline the forms and then fill them with a thick impasto. She will then carefully study the finished piece, taking it to important points in her studio.
This ritualistic reverence and conviction apparent in her extensive series of works is definitive not only of her creative practice but also her way of being. These gestural drawings possess a feeling of tremendous conviction as the images are smeared, rubbed and burnished onto the paper, until they appear to be printed rather than drawn. The motifs become hieroglyphic through the artist's viscerally intense mark-making and sensuous use of colour. In her work, Reyes seems to be telling us something of which she is utterly certain, repeating many of her subjects time and time again, as if to underscore the necessity of their being. Reyes' manner of working through repetition with slight shifts in composition and style, recalls the methods of other artists such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Richard Serra.
From 2002 to 2017 Reyes worked in the Creativity Explored studio in San Francisco. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in the permanent collections of Le MADmusée, Liège in Belgium and in the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive in California. CB2 chose Reyes' carrots as the basis for two pillow designs and in 2013 Comme des Garçons selected Reyes' work for three t-shirts. In 2015 Reyes' pastels were selected as winning artworks in the Big-i Art Project's fifth open call.
In 1960 when Vignes was forty years old, he started to draw for fun on sheets of paper, first using ball point pens and colour pencils then later felt-tip pens. He also drew on Kraft paper, pieces of cardboard and scraps of plywood. His favourite recurrent themes included flowers, boats, fishes, whales, cars, aircraft, buses, trains, churches, gas stoves and musical instruments. In almost all of his drawings heart shapes can be found, often in the corners, and these symbolise a love for humanity. He was severely short-sighted and worked with his nose almost touching the paper. Vignes' house was filled with stacks of his drawings, meticulously packed away in plastic bags, in closets, under beds and in wardrobes.
In 1974 Vignes was discovered by Claude Massé who dedicated an article to the artist in the eleventh issue of Fascicule de l'Art Brut. From 1971 to 1980, Vignes produced three thousand 'good points' which he distributed to those he loved. The highly personal universe that the artist created is full of poetry and strangeness.
Artworks by Pépé Vignes can be found in the public collections of Musée de la Création Franche in Bègles, France and at the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Scottie Wilson (1888 - 1972)
Scottie Wilson was a Scottish-Jewish outsider artist, best known for his highly detailed style of drawing. Wilson became an artist at the age of forty-four and is generally accepted to be one of the most historically significant figures in the history of Outsider Art. Wilson's uniquely intuitive drawings drew the attention and respect of the Surrealists and were collected by artists Jean Dubuffet and Pablo Picasso. Decades after his death, Wilson is still celebrated as one of the classic Outsider Artists.
Scottie (Robert) Wilson, born Louis Freeman in 1888, came from Glasgow, Scotland. As a young child he was forced to leave school in order to help support his family's meagre income, by amongst other things, selling newspapers on the street. Later in 1906, at the age of sixteen, he enlisted with the British army's Scottish Rifles and subsequently travelled extensively, serving in South Africa and India and later fighting on the Western Front during World War I. After the war, Wilson emigrated to Toronto, Canada, where he owned and ran a second-hand shop.
A self-taught artist and more or less illiterate throughout his life, Wilson began to draw in the 1930s. He first began to doodle just to pass the time in his shop. He drew prolifically, in an overwrought but refined style, producing a vast bestiary of fantastical creatures. The first dealer to encounter Wilson's work was a Canadian, Douglas Duncan, who displayed them in various gallery shows. In 1943 Wilson had his first solo exhibition in Toronto. After receiving recognition for his artwork, he abruptly returned to Britain in early 1945 and settled in Kilburn, London. Wilson soon became a well-known character on the London art scene and was championed by the London surrealists. A few months after his arrival he had a solo exhibition at the Arcade Gallery in London, shown concurrently with works by Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Klee and Joan Miró. However Wilson rejected commercialism and he could be found on the street, selling his work for a minute fraction of the gallery prices. He always lived on the periphery of the art scene, drawn to it but it was one he always despised.
Wilson drew in a semi-trance state but he did not intentionally channel spirits. His distinctive drawings are fantastical and decorative. His narrow range of visual elements embody a personal code of morality where 'Greedies' and 'Evils' (malignant personifications) are juxtaposed with naturalistic symbols of goodness and truth portrayed by stylized botanical forms, animals and birds. At other times his images are self-portraits drawn as clown caricatures or seem to contain references to North American totem poles or to Indian decoration. The evolution of his style was notoriously non-existent and it is very difficult to place his work in periods because he did not date most of his pictures. Wilson preferred to use crayon, pen and ink as they allowed him to work quickly but he also experimented with gouache.
In the 1960s, Wilson began to create paintings on plates and was subsequently commissioned by Royal Worcester to design a series of dinnerware. The picture 'Bird Song' was chosen as a design for the 1970 UNICEF Christmas Card. Wilson died in 1972 and although he always complained of poverty, under his bed he had hidden a suitcase full of cash and secreted large sums of money in various bank accounts.