Outsider Art and the autistic creator

Abstract

Outsider Art (art brut) is defined as a mode of original artistic expression which thrives on its independence, shunning the public sphere and the art market. Such art can be highly idiosyncratic and secretive, and reflects the individual creator's attempt to construct a coherent, albeit strange, private world. Certain practitioners of what may be termed autistic art are examined in the light of this definition; their work is considered as evidence not of a medical condition but of an expressive intentionality entirely worthy of the interest of those drawn to the aesthetic experience.

Figure 1

Madge Gill, untitled pen drawing (female face). Courtesy Roger Cardinal.

Figure 2

Edmund Monsiel, untitled pencil drawing (proliferating faces). Courtesy Henry Boxer Gallery, Richmond, London.

Figure 3

James Castle, untitled drawing in soot and saliva (artist's workplace). Courtesy J. Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho.

Figure 4

Jeroen Pomp, untitled painting (zoo). Courtesy Hamer Gallery, Amsterdam.

Figure 5

Gregory Blackstock, cover of his book Blackstock's Collections (2006). Courtesy Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

Figure 6

George Widener, Megalopolis 21, mixed media drawing. Courtesy Henry Boxer Gallery, Richmond, London.