I am a neoOutsider artist. I’m a Southerner who came to art late in life as the result of personal trauma. My work is infused with my belief in God whose hand guides me.
Featured Artist
George Spencer | Lebanon, NH
@GR8FUL123
I am a neoOutsider artist. I’m a Southerner who came to art late in life as the result of personal trauma. My work is infused with my belief in God whose hand guides me.
Born in 1965 in Paris. Self-taught artist. I live in Rennes (Brittany, France)
In 1986, I created with Bathelemy Schwartz the revue Dorénavant, one of the first avant-garde revue of comics theory: this revue (1986 – 1988) proposed a new definition of the comic strip as a simple juxtaposition of pictures. Also, were included with the comics some paintings of Klee, Kandinsky or Picasso. This statement was also a way to create a new connection between comics and paintings: what was at stake then, was not the graphics (like for Lichtenstein or Combas) but the division of the canvas. Thanks to this, the painting would find again its very old and deep temptation: the illusion of time, which can create a narrative or a musical dimension.
The French comics’ world reacted sometimes with curiosity but most of the time with rejection. The art world ignored it.
From 1988 to 2006, I gave up painting and drawing and rather liked to write novels and essays.
Balthazar Kaplan | Rennes, France
balthazarkaplan.com
@balthazarkaplan
Born in 1965 in Paris. Self-taught artist. I live in Rennes (Brittany, France)
In 1986, I created with Bathelemy Schwartz the revue Dorénavant, one of the first avant-garde revue of comics theory: this revue (1986 – 1988) proposed a new definition of the comic strip as a simple juxtaposition of pictures. Also, were included with the comics some paintings of Klee, Kandinsky or Picasso. This statement was also a way to create a new connection between comics and paintings: what was at stake then, was not the graphics (like for Lichtenstein or Combas) but the division of the canvas. Thanks to this, the painting would find again its very old and deep temptation: the illusion of time, which can create a narrative or a musical dimension.
The French comics’ world reacted sometimes with curiosity but most of the time with rejection. The art world ignored it.
From 1988 to 2006, I gave up painting and drawing and rather liked to write novels and essays.
From 2006, a new generation of comics’ authors discovered again the revue Dorénavant. Some books and articles have been published about it. The website Du9 put online the whole revue.
At the same period, I decided to get back to drawing and painting.
May-july 2018, first exhibition in The Lavoir, in Rennes (France).
Fall 2018 : Publication of two paintings in the Parisian revue “L’Echaudée” (number 8)
January 2019, exhibit in Angoulême, during the bande dessinée festival.
June 2019, exhibit in the Rennes art market.
October 2019, exhibit in the YIA (Young International Artfair) in Paris
Articles in English about Dorévanant :
– Ann Miller, Bart Beaty, The French Comics Theory Reader, Leuven University Press, 2014
– Domingos Isabelinho, Barthélémy Schwartz’s, Balthazar Kaplan’s and Others’ Dorénavant, The Cribsheet, 14 mars 2009.
– Ann Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée: Critical Approaches to French-language Comic Strip, Intellect, 2007
Selected Artists | Issue Three
Finally!
We have selected our Artists for issue three. Congratulations to all the Artists who made the cut and thank you to everyone who submitted your art. On February 15, 2020, we will begin our new art submission process for issue four.
We still have a few available spots remaining for our 2 page spreads. If interested please check out this link. Deadline is February 20, 2020.
Listed (from our free/featured artists submission form) in no particular order.
Guilherme Pereira | São Paulo, Brazil
Don Bergland | Victoria, BC, Canada
Luke Whiteside | Blacksburg, VA
Branka Marković | Podgorica
Don Gilmer | Hiram, GA
Mattia Ilic | Amsterdam, Holland
Royce Brown | Los Angeles, CA
Abigail Flynt | Tacoma, WA
John Hartt | Manassas, VA
Danette Sperry | Maysville, GA
Serene Chan | Markham, Ontario, Canada
Bill Skrips | Cerrillos, NM
Milena Vig | La Spezia, Italy
Salvo Bruno | Palermo, Italy
Anton Xavier | Puyloubier, France
Dawn Waters | Gulfport, FL
Natalia Bennett | Huonville, Tasmania
Jeff Jachimiec | Dodgeville, WI
Mizuki Nishiyama | New York, NY
John van Orsouw | Palatine Bridge, NY
Carlos Bracho | Miami, FL
De’Ago Hidalgo | Jersey City, NJ
I am inspired by accidental arrangements, pareidolia and dreams . These effects produce a quality of consciousness that makes art a magical journey for me. Much of my work is automatic , it happens while I do it. I enjoy this process of discovering a narrative. When I’m not painting, I’m busy making hand made jewelry.
I am inspired by accidental arrangements, pareidolia and dreams . These effects produce a quality of consciousness that makes art a magical journey for me. Much of my work is automatic , it happens while I do it. I enjoy this process of discovering a narrative. When I’m not painting, I’m busy making hand made jewelry.
De’Ago Hidalgo | Jersey City, NJ
@deagoart
Don Bergland’s psychological creations rely upon the viewer’s internal ability to engage willingly in the process of metaphysical reflection. His dark images, featuring youthful characters, aged mentors, oddly assembled creatures, and quaintly juxtaposed objects, are rendered in precise detail in captured moments of frozen time, mechanical statements voicing eternity, death, childhood, and absurdity in the unfolding of the human drama, an uneasy combination laid before the viewer in a exposure of theatrical puppetry.
Don Bergland’s psychological creations rely upon the viewer’s internal ability to engage willingly in the process of metaphysical reflection. His dark images, featuring youthful characters, aged mentors, oddly assembled creatures, and quaintly juxtaposed objects, are rendered in precise detail in captured moments of frozen time, mechanical statements voicing eternity, death, childhood, and absurdity in the unfolding of the human drama, an uneasy combination laid before the viewer in a exposure of theatrical puppetry.
Born in Amsterdam, Holland, my family emigrated to New York in the ’60s, eventually settling in Los Angeles. Art has occupied me from my earliest recollection. As a youngster, I would travel to the public library, return with 10 art books, devour them, then return for 10 more. Though I never had any formal training or, indeed, any sort of academic career, I educated myself through visits to museums and galleries, and, of course, by doing the work. Along with an intimacy with art, I have always considered it equally important and rewarding to maintain a bond with literature, music and the liberal arts. Every artist has to invent painting for themselves. I want to create compelling and original art, and have been fortunate to find outlets for my work along the way as well as support from some people who like what I do.
Peter Hess | Los Angeles, CA
http://www.peterhessart.com
@peter_hess_art
Born in Amsterdam, Holland, my family emigrated to New York in the ’60s, eventually settling in Los Angeles. Art has occupied me from my earliest recollection. As a youngster, I would travel to the public library, return with 10 art books, devour them, then return for 10 more. Though I never had any formal training or, indeed, any sort of academic career, I educated myself through visits to museums and galleries, and, of course, by doing the work. Along with an intimacy with art, I have always considered it equally important and rewarding to maintain a bond with literature, music and the liberal arts. Every artist has to invent painting for themselves. I want to create compelling and original art, and have been fortunate to find outlets for my work along the way as well as support from some people who like what I do.
I’m Dutch/Egyptian, retired, but I was a businessman, teacher, inventor and I love challenging tasks. I’m completely self-taught, I never studied art or took any courses. I would say that my personality was formed in an Eastern society and has also been changed and affected by a Western one. My art represents the pain my family and I went through due to my daughter’s chronic illness, and it is inspired by her. One of my first jobs in Amsterdam was working as a cleaner at the Van Gogh museum, I was very impressed by the art and it helped my art career.
Bio:
I’m Dutch/Egyptian, retired, but I was a businessman, teacher, inventor and I love challenging tasks. I’m completely self-taught, I never studied art or took any courses. I would say that my personality was formed in an Eastern society and has also been changed and affected by a Western one. My art represents the pain my family and I went through due to my daughter’s chronic illness, and it is inspired by her. One of my first jobs in Amsterdam was working as a cleaner at the Van Gogh museum, I was very impressed by the art and it helped my art career.
Artist Statement:
In 1999, my daughter Amal was born with one of the most difficult diseases, Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). It’s a rare chronic disease where the skin is as weak and fragile as a butterfly’s wing. Blisters and open wounds are formed by the slightest touch. She is in constant pain, all the time. There is no cure for it and we’ve been struggling and fighting this disease every day ever since. My art was born a year later because of the enormous emotional and mental turmoil my wife, my kids and I went through dealing with this disease, as Amal has become the centre of our attention and life ever since. It was a constant struggle to keep going and reaching a safe shore. I had never drawn or painted before, but somehow on her first birthday, I started making these strange drawings. You’ll find that my paintings are very random, but controlled. In every painting, I try to express myself to show the viewer what I’ve created and what I mean. However, most people who have seen my paintings, also saw something different in them. You can see them from many different perspectives, but they all represent finding beauty within chaos and despair. Recently, after many years, I’ve been told that my art style is classified as “expressionism”.
Mandalena combines the classical with modernity, as she takes a timeless subject or topic and presents a modern rendition of it. She redefines and recreates a traditional idea, by imparting expression through brush strokes. She loves doing portraits and pays special attention to get a true likeness of the eyes as she firmly believes that our “eyes are the windows to our souls”. Her opinion is that the skillful use of the art isn’t only the attempt of reflection the reality but first of all, the most accurate devise of emotion.
Mandalena Wozniak Melissourgaki was born in Warsaw, the capital city of Poland but now she lives and works in Crete, Greece. From an early age, it was obvious that her biggest love is painting and she started participate to a lot of art competitions. She studied Fine Art at the Warsaw School of Art and then went on to get another degree in Multimedia Graphics. Trained in graphics art, she does illustrations, book covers, art installation and animation. A self-motivated and passionate artist, she paints in a variety of mediums- oils, pastels, charcoals, and works on various creative projects.
Mandalena combines the classical with modernity, as she takes a timeless subject or topic and presents a modern rendition of it. She redefines and recreates a traditional idea, by imparting expression through brush strokes. She loves doing portraits and pays special attention to get a true likeness of the eyes as she firmly believes that our “eyes are the windows to our souls”. Her opinion is that the skillful use of the art isn’t only the attempt of reflection the reality but first of all, the most accurate devise of emotion.
From the true and deep love to the art she teaches the sensibility of emotion and beauty to the new generation. Mandalena is an honorary member of Children’s Biennale and jury at Children’s Art Gallery in Greece. She believes that the art influences imagination and calmness and except that is the most universal language in the world.
Also, over the years she has been cooperated with the Archaeological Museum, located on Crete and until now she is making official and certificated copies of the most important artefacts and images from the Minoan Civilization collection.
Mandalena is a Jury committee president at the Aegean Arts International Festival on Crete and Honorary member of Biennale in Greece . In 2019, she participated to “The Folklore Museum” in Episkopi, in Palaiochora at Chania, to “Art Gallery Rome” in Rome, to in Zurich and to “ArtExpoProject” in Venice. Mandalena had a solo exhibition in the El Greco Museum. Furthermore, her work was published at the “The new Art Book 2019” from the Art Freaks Global.
In her last exhibition she presented an artwork collection which have shown the connection, but also the difference between the traditional and modern art. The goal of this collection was to pay attention on emotions which are the trait of modern art. Paintings were in couples, one was realistic and the other one was a description of feelings. Main part of the exhibition was dedicated to the metaphor of windows and the light pouring into the dark room. In her work she used different type of technique which influenced for different form of perception the same window. It was a theme which specially encouraged the reflection and made you think about the future.
This exhibition was the key to the imagination and was inviting the visitors to an amazing trip on their reflection.
Mandalena is an artist with a lot of great success and the last years her work was presented in few newspapers. Her works are in the collections of many private and corporate collectors from such countries as USA, Canada, Italy, Germany, Turkey etc. -12/2019 Publication in the SPOTLIGHT XVI Contemporary Art Magazine-Circle Foundation magazine
– 2-8/12/19 Miami ARTEXPO-PROJECT SEMIFINALIST Exhibition
-2019Publication in a book of my artworks ART BOOK /ART FREAKSGLOBAL
-15-08/19-08/2019 ARTEXPO EXHIBITION ZURICH -2 -18 -06 /2019 SOLO EXHIBITION IN MUSEUM EL GRECO
4-12/07/2019AEGEAN ARTS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
-29-06-04-07/2019 International exhibition in Rome ,ART GALLERY ROME
-11-18-05/2019 exhibition Παλαιόχωρα
Katie Willes is a self-taught abstract expressionist. Her degree was in Chemistry, but her art education started in museums across Europe. With a passion for art herself, Katie’s mother took her to museums on every vacation and weekend trip during Katie’s teenage years, when Katie’s father was stationed at an Army hospital in Germany. Katie’s love for art continued and she takes her own children to museums in every new city and country they visit.
Despite her appreciation for art, Katie always thought of herself as a left-brained person. Her interest in abstract was piqued with her first visit to the MoMA in New York. When her oldest went away to college and studied art, Katie started painting as a way to connect with her. That sparked a passion that has blazed like wildfire. With an innate eye for color and design, Katie’s paintings also reflect her optimism and happy personality.
Katie Willes | Sandy, UT
http://www.katiewillesart.com
@katie.willes.art
Katie Willes is a self-taught abstract expressionist. Her degree was in Chemistry, but her art education started in museums across Europe. With a passion for art herself, Katie’s mother took her to museums on every vacation and weekend trip during Katie’s teenage years, when Katie’s father was stationed at an Army hospital in Germany. Katie’s love for art continued and she takes her own children to museums in every new city and country they visit.
Despite her appreciation for art, Katie always thought of herself as a left-brained person. Her interest in abstract was piqued with her first visit to the MoMA in New York. When her oldest went away to college and studied art, Katie started painting as a way to connect with her. That sparked a passion that has blazed like wildfire. With an innate eye for color and design, Katie’s paintings also reflect her optimism and happy personality.
Outsider Art Magazine 