Outsider Art

There's a story in the NYT's about the Outsider Art Fair that's happening in New York this week. In discussing what makes this kind of art "outsider," they mention Canadian painter Holly Farrell, who had quite a presence at the fair. You can see her paintings here. I think they're lovely. Pretty, simple, and well-executed. I guess what makes them outsider art is that there doesn't seem to be much more to the message than, here are the things in my world, and I'm going to paint them. They're not self-referential, or aware of the texture of their own paint, or anything like that. Each object is useful, and prized for its utility. They are simply pictures of things. It's like she's saying, I'm going to honour the small things that make up my life by painting them. But I don't know. The objects takes on a haunted quality (and some are just cute.) The washstand and the white chair are eerie. They're from a life that happens outside of the frame that you can only guess at. But in the end, they're simply pretty pictures of things. I go back and forth on it. Does a painting need to be more than a shiny vase in front of an attractive pattern? It's good enough for me, but then it's also just decoration. And what's the difference? What does it need to say to become Art?

But it's interesting, the idea of what makes outsider art "outsider." I guess obsessiveness, mental illness, a child-like quality, a disregard for the rules of the art world, a turn away from the conceptual. I went to the American Folk Art Museum in NYC when I was there in September and it was an amazing experience. They had a whole wall of Henry Darger, of quilters and muralists and sculptors, all otherworldly, all beautiful. But a drawing made 20 years ago could have also been made 100 years ago and also five years ago. There was something timeless about the pieces I saw, similar to how folk art seems to remain consistent. But I could very well be wrong about that.