As a classic introvert, the Pandemic allowed me to live a life I had only dreamt of. No appointments, no lunches, no parties. Even phone calls dried up.
This collection began in January 2021 as a form of pandemic diary. I was able to focus on the small moments that make up a day. My dog barking, a charming house, a knotty tree. As the world opens I am committed to keeping my eyes on “the small picture”.
Painting these moments force me, and I hope the viewer, to “realize life while we live it” (to quote Thorton Wilder).
The scenes are rendered not as they are, but as they appear in my mind with flattened shapes, distorted perspectives, romanticized palettes recognizable from Outsider and Pop Art.
The work is primarily oil painting with elements from past series to clarify my voice. This includes cardboard layers, polymer objects, thread and glitter to infuse the scenes with my humor, humanity and warped look at the world.
Squirrel | Oil, acrylic, cardboard, embroidery thread, polymer clay on wood panel | 14″ x 18″ with hand embellished frameBedtime | Oil, acrylic, cardboard, embroidery thread, polymer clay, glitter on wood panel | 14″ x 14″ with hand painted frameGuard Dog | Oil, acrylic, cardboard, polymer clay, embroidery thread on wood panel | 13″ x 16″ with hand painted frameWalking Fiona | Oil, acrylic, cardboard, pumice medium on wood panel | 16″ x 20″ unframed
My art is intuitive and non-conceptual. I like to use bright colors and unusual shape’s and patterns to create a dreamy abstract landscape. I have exhibited in a number of galleries including Van Der Plas Gallery, 440 Gallery, SITE Gallery, BWAC, and Greenpoint Gallery in New York City, La Galleria Pall Mall in London, and Chie Gallery in Milan, Italy. I am trying to make the world a happier place one painting at a time.
My art is intuitive and non-conceptual. I like to use bright colors and unusual shape’s and patterns to create a dreamy abstract landscape. I have exhibited in a number of galleries including Van Der Plas Gallery, 440 Gallery, SITE Gallery, BWAC, and Greenpoint Gallery in New York City, La Galleria Pall Mall in London, and Chie Gallery in Milan, Italy. I am trying to make the world a happier place one painting at a time.
Adrift | Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 24 x 1.5Spring! | Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 24 x 1.5Multiverse #3 | Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 24 x 1.5Alternative Reality | Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 24 x 1.5
The Spring Map paintings are inspired by the quarantine of Covid-19. Using old Renaissance maps to speak to the spread of disease felt fitting as a starting point for finding our place in a new unknown world. The geography of these old maps is strange and wonky which resonates with the current world situation. Martin Waldseemüller’s Mappa Mundi of 1507 inspired me. His map was the first map to name America (after Vespucci’s voyage). It is comprised of twelve pieces, which seems a perfect metaphor for how the globe has been shattered, nations shutting borders and residents under lockdowns, all separated.
The thought of the Great Plague of 1351 seemed so ancient and never even a possibility of happening to us given our great medical and social strides in the last six hundred or so years. Yet, unbelievably here we are, literally living through a historic pandemic surrounded by huge uncertainty and losses of life and of connection. My paintings are paintings of life, of finding existential meaning in crisis. The geography is deliberately inaccurate as a means to portray disorientation and confusion. The colors are a nod to spring and regeneration, including flowers in states of decay and of blossom. These paintings are my thoughts and dreams of our place in the stars and our time.
Susan Lizotte lives in Los Angeles and balances her studio practice with her family and pets, including a pet peacock.
Mare Incognitum | oil on canvas | 12 x 12
Mappa Mundi Spring Map | oil on canvas | 54 x 96Mappa Mundi Terra Incognita | oil on canvas | 30 x 30 x 2Mappa Mundi Terra Incognita II | oil on wood panel | 16 x 16 x 2
My work is loosely based on the figure, sometimes morphing into quirky and other worldly beings. The figures I create, some creepy and dark are not to be found on the street but rather in one’s imagination or dreams creating an alternate universe. My ceramic figures inhabit boats, circular and square stands, clay or wooden wagons with wheels, figures sitting on animals or chairs and recently figures appear in portraits.
My work is loosely based on the figure, sometimes morphing into quirky and other worldly beings. The figures I create, some creepy and dark are not to be found on the street but rather in one’s imagination or dreams creating an alternate universe. My ceramic figures inhabit boats, circular and square stands, clay or wooden wagons with wheels, figures sitting on animals or chairs and recently figures appear in portraits.
Although my figures are pared-down minimalist in outside appearance, I mean for them to have complicated and subtle inner lives. For me, they carry the heavy weight of emotional fragility.
Wondering how to live in the world with others … this is my way of speaking through my art, my way of being in the world.
Girl Bandit | Ceramic/porcelain | 4.5″h x 3.5″w x .5″d
Flower Bandit | Ceramic/earthenware | 4.5″h x 3.5″w x .25″d
Horse with Rider | Ceramic/earthenware | 3.5″h x 4.5″w x .5″d
Blue Dress | Ceramic/earthenwaren |4.5″h x 3.5″w x .5″d
Releah Michelle was born in Georgia in 1987. She is a self-taught abstract expressionist who has been honing her artistic voice for many years. Merging her love for painting abstract figures and automatic painting around the movement of energy paves a straight line to her artistic vocal cord.
She is currently based in Georgia and is inspired by her ancestors, ancient Egyptian history, the spiritual world, meditation, and the use of bright colors. Beauty also plays a significant part in her style presented in the artworks because she was previously an independent latex clothing fashion designer for a total of 7 years. She presented at NY Fashion Week and put on several local fashion shows. Her creative process for the abstract figurative paintings begin with either her sketching first or free-hand painting figures into abstract backgrounds. Her creative process for abstract paintings begin with layers of acrylic paint being applied on the canvas over a period of days often incorporating a mixed media approach.
Artist Statement:
Art is a path so I describe my art as an extension of my previous fashion designer career. As an artist and expressionist who is constantly evolving spiritually my art explores the relationship between beauty and the spiritual world. Reflections of the soul, beautiful black woman, and texture are a couple of the subject matters you will find in my artwork.
Neutral Identity | Acrylic on Canvas | 24″ x 12″
We Are Connected | Acrylic on Canvas | 18″ x 24″
The Sun is Shining | Acrylic on Canvas | 18″ x 24″
Heatwave VS Comfort | Mixed Media on Canvas | 18″ x 24″
I became inspired and encouraged to start painting in 2019, following the completion of a creativity workshop based on the premise that if one has a long-held desire, dream or instinctive push to do something, it is most likely a nudge from the universe that needs to be explored.
Prior to that time, I had experienced great difficulty expressing myself through art. After taking the workshop, I felt the freedom and encouragement to start painting. I believe my art is an expression of those feelings of freedom, openness and fun! My medium is acrylics and I describe my art as expressive, intuitive, unique, bold, and colorful.
In some ways, I feel that I do not do the art, the art does me! I am usually quite amused and surprised by the finished painting! I know that my art work is an expression of my life experiences, desires and dreams. When thinking about the viewers of my art, I imagine them standing there, being intrigued, heads cocked to one side, thinking,” wow, what is this all about?”
As a self- taught artist, in my seventies, my wish is to inspire and encourage others to open up to their creative selves and express their gifts.
I, Thomas Riesner, am an outsider art artist based in Leipzig. The painting I have acquired myself. In 1990 I began to deal intensively with painting.Mostly I paint in the Durchblick eV Leipzig, here there is also a gallery and a museum. The association uses a logo based on one of my etchigs. It shows two eyes and a bird. Often I also paint at home in a small studio. My ideas come mostly spontaneously from the subconscious, just like that, often when I listen to music. In social media, for example, facebook and instagram, I am actice. That´s also how I got to outsider art magazine. There I was published in issue 4.
Martin Coyle is and Outsider Artist with no formal art education or training, he has been painting out of his home studio located in a converted barn behind his house for the last 15 years here in the beautiful city of Dover N.H
Martin Coyle is originally from Long Island New York and is related to late NYC expressionist painter Otto Mjaanes.
Coyle is married to his beautiful wife Rachel and they have a 19-year-old daughter Solei
Statement by the artist
As an outsider artist I don’t go into creating my paintings with an intention or direction, I let the artwork create itself. I consider myself an expressionist and create both figurative and nonfigurative artwork .
I have always been an artist but didn’t get serious with my art until 2012, In 2013 I had my first group exhibition art show at 100 market gallery in Portsmouth N.H and won the award for honorable mention.
Since then, I have been in group art shows in New Jersey and twice in California.
I work in many different mediums and enjoy both painting and drawing.
Marcela is a self-taught intuitive artist born in Sydney, Australia. She is currently based in Hong Kong.
Her earliest creative explorations were in dance, drama, singing and visual arts. In childhood and adolescence, she found an escape in art and a place where she could express herself without words.
After high school, she completed a Law Degree at the University of Technology Sydney, which saw her work in various jobs from legal to publishing related jobs.
She felt herself pulled back into the arts during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The turmoil brought about by the pandemic, led her to connect more deeply artistically and spiritually. Creating art felt therapeutic and her art quickly became deeply connected to her spiritual practice.
Marcela’s work is based on intuition, mindfulness and vibrational energies. Her works revolve around exploring the realms of the unknown and altered states of consciousness. Rainbows are often found in her works, as a symbol of the rainbow bridge.
Through predominately ink, watercolour and hand drawn digital art, her works represent her way of translating the unseen energies she experiences into something more tangible for others to see.
She hopes her art sparks discussions about other-worldly topics that transcend current human understanding.
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Artist Statement:
I try to capture the invisible and make it visible.
My work is based on intuition, mindfulness and vibrational energies.
My artworks are often created subconsciously from a prayerful meditative place, only once they are finished do I come to understand what they are expressing.
In part through automatic drawing and also through accessing my intuition, I challenge others to see beyond current human understanding by diagramming elements of the immaterial world and exploring altered states of consciousness. To have people look past the 5 senses, that is my goal and inspiration.
Felicity | Hand Drawn Digital Art | 16″ x 20″
By Your Side | Hand Drawn Digital Art | 16″ x 20″
A Face In The Crowd | Hand Drawn Digital Art | 16″ x 20″
Better Together | Hand Drawn Digital Art | 18″ x 24″
In Binna Kim’s artwork, she aims to present a stimulating mixture of nature and a view from her vivid imagination.
Whether in colorful abstract works or visual interpretation of nature, the works demonstrate keen attention to the smallest detail in order to emphasize the depth of expression and emotive beauty of nature. This combination helps bring the audience to a different world, a stage for viewing scenery in an emotionally evocative way. While viewing the works, the artist’s visual expression and interpretation by the audience merge and go hand in hand to evoke a memory, a passion, or a feeling unique to each of us.
Emotions-19 Series focuses on positive emotions that we might have forgotten for a while due to Covid-19 pandemic, such as love, joy, comfort and gratitude.
Binna Kim is a self-taught artist with a few different yet special career backgrounds. She is based in New York as an artist, floral designer and window display designer. Binna’s childhood was spent on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, against the backdrop of mountains and ocean that first inspired her art. Natural forms have remained a central theme in her work, and as her art career flourished she developed an interest in floral design and plant-based installations. Binna’s arrangements have graced vitrines at flagship locations of Beretta, Madison Avenue Gallery and Oxxford Clothes, and at renowned boutiques across New York City.
Apex No.1 – Emotions-19 Series | Acrylic inks, Pastels & Pens on paper | 16 x 16 inches
Apex No.2 – Emotions-19 Series | Acrylic inks, Pastels & Pens on paper | 16 x 16 inches
Metaphysical Joy No.1 – Emotions-19 Series | Acrylic inks & Pastels on paper | 24 x 18 inches
Tranquil Joy – Emotions-19 Series | Acrylic inks & Pastels on paper | 24 x 18 inches
Outsider Art Magazine 