Naive & Outsider Art

Subscribe to Artlink - from $55. Subscriptions available for readers anywhere in the world.

NAVA - National Association for the Visual Arts

You are here » Artlink » Issues Index » Naive & Outsider Art

Challenging issue which looks at naive and outsider art. Think about tattoos, topiary, whittling, garden landscapes, commercialisation - all sorts of issues to challenge the usual stereotypes. Reviews

Topic list: identity, indigenous culture, kitsch, multiculturalism, outsiders, Pacific, popular culture.

Subscribe or Order this issue » (from $14 inc. postage)

Articles in Vol 12 no 4, 1992

Anthony Hopkins

Artist profile by Julie Green

Looks at the works of Anthony Hopkins. — More »

A Living Treasure: The Topiary of Jack Cashion

Feature by Audrey Hutchison

As a sculptor working in metal I have been interested for some time in combining plants with the hard surfaces of copper and steel. The issues involved in using shrubs and trees are many, including that the work isn't trivialised or lacking in credibility, transport and of course storage. — More »

Arts Project Australia: Creativity, Marginality and the Politics of Difference

Feature by Chris McAuliffe

Arts Project Australia was formed in Melbourne in 1974 as an advocacy group for artists with an intellectual disability. The initial aim of the organisationwas to gather a comprehensive collections of artworks from centres in Victoria working with people with an intellectual disability. — More »

Bill Sorrell

Feature by Julian Goddard

Looks at the environment of Bill Sorrell working in the small farming town of Toodyay in the Avon Valley about 80 kilometres from Perth Western Australia. — More »

Captain Oates' Last Words

Feature by David Hansen

Art institutions are beginning to welcome Outsiders in. But there seems to be a little uncertainty in the art world as to the specifics of the Other guest list: enterprises such as this Artlink special issue are a means of establishing the canon, of packaging the concept. — More »

Ciao from Canberra

Feature by Anne Virgo

Hidden in the neat suburban streets of Canberra are the sculptures of Giacomo Rampone. Superbly crafted from steel and cement, these sculptures adorn the front gardens of each of Rampone's homes past and present. — More »

Disposable Icons

Feature by Ex de Medici

Tattoos — More »

Eccentric Gardens of Australia

Feature by Jennifer Isaacs

In country towns, suburban lanes and backstreets, tucked behind barricades and fences or alternatively displayed for all to see, are the gardens and decorated outdoor spaces of many 'other' artists. These gardens or 'exhibitions' could generally be called quirky. Many coloured photographs. — More »

Foils for the Silver City

Feature by Matthew Simon

Disillusioned with the contemptible familiarity of our environment in the South Australian School of Art a group of fellow students and I decided to take our art somewhere else. So, displaced and gung-ho, our controversial creations in tow, we set off to Broken Hill, the self proclaimed art capital of Australia. — More »

Frank 'Bronco' Johnson - The Poetics of Defence

Feature by Paul Hoban

He was always delighted to be fighting with someone.... — More »

From Stone Henge to Post-Feminist Creatures

Feature by Lawrence Hall

Tattoo in Aotearoa/ New Zealand Tattooing is not 'Outsider' or 'Other' art. To suggest this is to fall once more into the tiresome quagmire of Western art definitions. Looks at an exhibition 'Tattoo' 1993. — More »

How to Hold a Festival in the Cook Islands

Feature by Susan Cochrane

Make your moment in Pacific history and hang the cost. On 15 October 1992 Raratongans waited expectantly for their 2000 guests from 23 other Pacific countries to arrive for the 6th Pacific Festival of Arts. — More »

I just had this Inkling...

Feature by Jackie Kerin

Interview with Tazz a tattoo artist in South Australia. — More »

Maria

Feature by Julian Goddard

Looks at the environment of Maria "Mad Mary" Hermann at her house in Leederville Western Australia. — More »

Masterminded Masterpieces: Legendary Art

Feature by Rimas Riauba

Mrs Iris Frame is going to be bigger than Elvis Presley. She told the author so herself. Her dream is to establish a museum of her life's work on her property just like Gracelands. — More »

Mental Disturbance and Artistic Production

Feature by Traudi Allen

The popular understanding of the so-called 'insane' artist cannot be summarised better than in the schmaltzy lyrics of 'Vincent' written and sung by Don McLean in the 1970s. He plaintively chides those who misunderstood the living Van Gogh and charges them with the responsibility for his suicide. — More »

Naive Archive

Feature by Stephanie Britton

A national survey of Australian Naives - short biographies by various contributors as well as the artists themselves and images many in colour. Artists include Bernard Jeffery, Hugh Schulz, Bill Yaxley, Sam Byrne, Maitreyi Ray, Pam Bartley, Roma Higgins, Phyl Delves, Alison Vodic, Gwen Mason, Reny Mia Slay, Stella Dilger, Del Luke, Muriel Smith, Elfrun Lach, Susan Wanji Wanji, Miriam Naughton, Gwen Clarke, Selby Warren, Malcolm Otton, Harold Kangaroo Thornton, Ivy Robson, Lorna Chick and George Deurden. — More »

Nothing if Not Innocent

Feature by Victoria Coles

Artists of the modern era have always been fascinated by the primitive, be it the obsession of the surrealists, futurists and modernists for the art of the Negro, the passion of a handful of British in the 60s for the work of the Cornish primitive Alfred Wallis or Jean Dubuffet's exploration of children's art and the art of the asylum which he termed Art Brut. — More »

Now Who is Being Naive?

Feature by John Kean

Naive is a tag used to describe the style of a particular artist and by inference the content of their work. In this examination of 4 contemporary artists working in what can be characterised as a naive style. the author illustrates that they are being anything but naive in the analysis of events, issues and stereotypes. — More »

Nyungar Landscapes: Wetern Australia

Feature by John E Stanton

In a remote corner of the south west of Western Australia, a school teacher who had never trained in art, was the catalyst for a school of landscape painting reminiscent of the style of Namatjira. Everything about this story was remarkable, not least that this happened over 40 years ago and that the average age of the artists was 10. The place was a tiny settlement known as Carrolup, now known as Marribank near Katanning. — More »

Outsider Art: Flavour of the Month

Feature by Philip Hammial

Looks at the art market and the great beast of commercialism. — More »

Stage Sets for Suburban Dramas

Feature by Olga Sankey

Photographs by Dianne Longley of domestic dwellings in and around Adelaide South Australia. — More »

The Australian Collection of Outsider Art

Feature by Philip Hammial

Outsider Artists in Australia? Of course. The phenomenon is universal. — More »

The Boundary Riders: The Art of Everyday Life

Feature by Sylvia Kleinert

The diversity of work found in the art of everyday life transgresses many of the implicit boundaries about art practice laid down by the art world. Other art meets all the criteria by which we usually evaluate art works such as skill, commitment and self-expression yet is rarely seen in a gallery context. In order to recover meaning and value for the art of everyday life the question must be asked: why have these artists been marginalised by the art world? — More »

Issue Index