Artists who see or experience the world in a different way.

 

"Yayoi Kusama is one of the most significant contemporary artists to emerge from Japan. Kusama suffers from 'rijinsho', or depersonalisation syndrome, and her art triggers visual experiences that metaphorically communicate the hallucinations, or veil of dots, she has endured since she was a child. This vibrant iconography, often transposed as nets or auras, dominates her practice".

Quote taken from Australia's Radio National home page

I saw her on TV and could not get over how brilliant she is, and how difficut her life has been. Her experience of the world and how she used her condition to create art and survive is stunning. See the TATE clip on youtube.

  

Nek Chand Outsider artist

What is Outsider Art?

"The development of the awareness of forms of creative expression that exist outside accepted cultural norms, or the realm of "fine art", began with the researches of psychiatrists during the early 1900's.

The artist Jean Dubuffet's concept of Art Brut, or Raw Art, was of works that were in their "raw" state, uncooked by cultural and artistic influences. He built up a vast collection of thousands of works, works which bore no relation to developments in contemporary art and yet were the innovative and powerful expressions of a wide range individuals from a variety of backgrounds".

 

 This is recycling on a monumental scale. I would describe his art as Outsider Art. Nek Chand has created a rock garden of strange but endearing animals and other unusual creatures. He populated it with standing, marching and dancing figures. The link to youtube shows a slide show of the garden, it is wonderful.

 

Nek Chand spent all of his life building these mosaic sculptures from waste materials. He always made multiples and traditional Indian art has inspired his artistic style.