10 March – 31 May
Long Gallery
These are primitive beginnings in art, such as one usually finds in ethnographic collections, or at home in the nursery. Do not laugh, reader! Children also have artistic ability and there is virtue in their having it! …Parallel phenomena are provided by the works of the intellectually challenged; neither childish behaviour nor madness are insulting words here, as they commonly are. All this art is to be taken seriously, more seriously than all the public galleries when it comes to reforming today’s art.
Paul Klee, contemporary American artist
Outsider art is art by self-taught or naïve art makers. Typically, those labelled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. Outsider art illustrates different visual constructions, a different way of seeing, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds – and hopefully for the viewer a new and enlightening experience.
A proposal by Anna Crichton to Panuku Development Auckland to set up a studio container on the Auckland waterfront beside the Te Wero Bridge led to the creation of a large seven panelled mural – Te Wero (to cast a spear, to challenge). The artists explored the downtown city waterfront and with their clipboards, paper and pencil in hand drew what inspired them – buildings, bollards, birds and more. The imagery was then upscaled onto the mural panels and painted by the artists. The experience of being on a busy waterfront walkway engaged the curious and very impressed public who came to chat and discuss the work with the artists, came to dance a waltz, and just came to ‘be there’ in an environment that was often brand new to their lives.
Artists from A Supported Life have met together each week at a workshop in the Titirangi bush where art facilitator Anna Crichton provides the artists with brushes, canvas and paint to create their work. It’s a quiet, focused time away from the often busy world of two4nine, A Supported Life’s creative space in Te Atatu South where many of the other artists and makers from the ASL community work. The second large multi-panelled mural was painted by Sam Wilcox in response to objects found within the garage and was given the name Still Life with Moving Parts.
Jared is the cruise ship expert, Sam is the master of abstraction and deconstruction, Jessie has secrets in dark painted places, Ruth dreams of sharp toothed underwater creatures, Pip flies like a bird to look down on the landscape. And there is a lot more flying. We can be inspired by the unselfconscious honesty of their marks and love the secrets of the mind that come to light.
Enjoy these moving works not for what they are ‘worth’ but for the artists pure joy of expressing ideas and passions that might not otherwise be easy for many of these artists.
For enquiries about acquiring artworks please contact Anna Crichton: illustrator@annacrichton.com
Jared Barrington, The Pink Princess, 2019, acrylic on canvas.
Danny Cope, Batman & Superman, (diptich), 2019, acrylic on canvas.
Large collection of artists, Te Wero mural (left side), 2019, acrylic on board.
AT THE OPENING… THE MUTES (FROM MARS)
A Supported Life created from its midst a unique rock / pop band with seven members with learning disabilities, ranging from Aspergers (ASD) to Down Syndrome. This band, The Mutes (from mars) has the aim of not only playing brilliant music but through a combination of musicianship and enthusiasm, want to break down barriers through music and performance and challenge people’s perceptions of disability. The musicians write and perform their own material as well as playing much loved covers. The band will be playing at the opening of the ‘Still Life with Moving Parts’ exhibition on 11th March @ 6pm. Come along and rock with us.