I no longer remember where or when I first encountered the phrase “outsider art,” but given my tastes, it quickly became a very useful addition to my conceptual toolkit. Also known as intuitive art, visionary art, naïve art, and an inevitable constellation of borrowed French terminology, outsider art is exactly what it sounds like: art created by people operating in deep isolation from the mainstream of their chosen field. Outsider artists have little or no formal training, receive little or no support from the culture industries, and enjoy little or no prospect of achieving financial prosperity or critical approbation through their work (unless they’re dead, of course— then the critics start fawning and the sales to galleries and well-heeled private collectors commence). They may use improvised media, strange techniques of their own devising, or subject matter so particular to their own psyches as to be nearly (or indeed completely) incomprehensible to anyone else. Not infrequently, outsider artists are markedly eccentric if not downright crazy...
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And be sure to spend some time perusing 1,000 MISSPENT HOURS, it is a fun and well written site.
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Do I count as an 'Outsider Artist'?
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