SOAS Research Online

Abstract

An exhibition featuring 34 international and UK artists who express their creativity beyond the bounds of convention. The exhibition will tour to eight venues around the UK. The exhibition, which is co-curated by Laura Hamilton, will showcase artworks by historically renowned artists associated with Outsider Art and contemporary artists some of whom are self-taught and all of whom see themselves as facing barriers to the art world for reasons including health, disability, social circumstance or isolation. For UK artists, an open callout was made and many artists were discovered during a national series of Surgery Days managed by Outside In. Over half the artists in the exhibition are associated with specialist centres, groups and studios who play a vital role in nurturing and supporting their creative development. Themes in the exhibition include radical missions in which artists have a passion for a particular subject or technique; intuitive responses to textiles employed as a non-verbal means of engaging with the outside world; autobiographical responses to the natural or urban environment; and folkloric or surreal perceptions of the world. Each of the artists’ individual backgrounds and paths of creative development occupy a different world to our more typical perception of the artist or craftsman. Most have never received any formal art training, although their practices may have been nurtured and encouraged in specialist centres or studios. Their work or creative impulses have been developed with independence, perceptual senses and an obvious lack of inhibition which is rarely aimed at a particular audience or marketplace. The artworks convey personal visions of the world, reveal inventive use of materials and vary in scale. From miniature sculptures carved into toothpicks and lead pencil tips, to vehicles made from recycled scrap, and from life size woven birch bark figures to a bridal headdress made from wrapped and embellished fabric. For this exhibition, we also collaborated with ActionSpace, which supports artists with learning disabilities, to create a residency for Andrew Omoding. We commissioned social anthropologist Trevor Marchand to acquire an understanding of his creative practice through study and observation for one day a week over a period of 8 weeks. A documentary film and an essay provide insights into Omoding’s drive to make and he is also represented in the exhibition by two artworks.