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20/06/03
Outsider Art comes Full Circle
– 'John
the Painter'
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 12 February–8 June 2003.
'Outsider Artists' are not only untrained, but
have also avoided 'social conditioning and cultural indoctrination'
according to Michel Thevoz, Curator of the Collection de l'Art Brut
in Lausanne, Switzerland, the largest and most comprehensive museum
of 'Outsider Art'.
'John the Painter' has been a resident of psychiatric institutions
for three decades (hence the anonymity) and is presently living
at Our Lady's Hospital in Cork. In 1993, after 20 years of confinement,
'John' began taking art therapy workshops under the auspices of
Cork Community Artlink. He had his first chance to use paint and
brushes and found an original and, literally, fantastic voice.
From initial small works – mainly repeating geometric patterns
– he completed his first major painting on paper that covered
an entire wall in the makeshift hospital studio within three years.
Measuring six metres by two, 'Jet Plane, Blue, Red, Yellow, Green,
Boxes, Arrows on Grand Parade, Chinese Version' is a fabulous spectacle
that seems to chronicle 'John's' rapid maturity as an artist. At
the far left are black geometric lines, perhaps a little tentative.
Then the lines become colourful and a male figure is surrounded
mainly by white space. Moving to the right, 'John' slowly experiments
with colour and form. He applies more paint – bright colours
begin to fill every space except at the top of the painting, where
arches and roof beams are outlined as if to cap the work. The work
becomes more complex and intense; the brushwork is more confident,
longer lines of colour and larger blocks of paint are applied as
he approaches the right of the painting until (at the extreme edge)
recognisable structures emerge: numbers, arrows, houses, windows,
kites, a Union Jack and the Japanese flag.
After this large-scale work, 'John' seemed to gain confidence and
began to explore favourite themes: people, places and things remembered,
and loved, from his childhood in Cork. Two paintings, side by side
'Savoy' part 1 and 2) depict the Savoy cinema from different
perspectives. In the first, a face, probably 'John's' own, is at
the centre and the cinema swirls around it, bending, pulled towards
the face. His affection for the cinema is clear, the colours bright,
contrasting; one window smiles at the viewer, another displays a
vibrant red and yellow heart. The work is a deeply felt expression
of happier times and warm memories of his youth – a time of
great change and excitement, when the first Apollo missions were
being launched and Elvis, the Beatles and Rolling Stones were battling
for the charts.
The second Savoy painting is also full of affection, but –
having allowed his raw emotions full reign in the first work –
this is a more restrained expression of his feelings. He needs to
recall the cinema realistically in order to pay homage to it. Although
'John' has not seen it for 30 years, for those who know Cork, the
Savoy is instantly recognisable. The basic shape and structure of
the cinema are formally outlined in black but, again, the windows
are full of colour and expression. Fields of colour – blues,
reds and purples – surround the Savoy, as though to protect
and preserve it.
Another Cork landmark, the Mangan Clock, is beautifully remembered
in 'Shandon'. Created about a year after the two Savoy paintings,
in this single work, 'John' has combined exuberant memories with
the elements of realism that are essential to him. The clock is
supported by struts and crossbars forming a wide, happy grin. Atop
the clock face is a rectangular tower with the appearance of a human
face; its eyes, nose and lips have an expression that is benevolent
but serious. 'John's' Mangan Clock is an important building with
a playful purpose. It is a gentle giant, studying passers-by and
protecting those who meet under it.
'John's' work falls into two broad types: memory paintings, in
which an apparent jumble of black and coloured lines which reveal
– on closer inspection – details of fondly remembered
people, places and objects; and contemporaneous paintings, in which
he records his present surroundings with vibrant blocks of colour
and shapes, free of the black lines that help to make his memories
tangible ('Flower Pot' and 'Tea for Two').
Everyone remembers that Picasso's eyes were opened to Cubism by
the influx of African sculpture to the West. What is forgotten is
an equivalent creative influence on Surrealism; Adolf Wolfi, confined
to a small cell in a Swiss asylum, produced thousands of influential
works. Dr Hans Prinzhorn collected paintings from many more inmates
and published Artistry of the Mentally Ill in 1922. It had
a major influence on Jean Dubuffet and André Breton –
who, together, recognised the importance of Art Brut or Raw
Art.
From another country, in another era, has come 'John the Painter',
an untrained and – for 20 of his 30 years in relative isolation
– completely 'artless' talent. His transformation, from voiceless
'mental patient' to fluent and brilliant communicator, is a tribute,
not only to his own genius, but also to a dedicated group of art
therapists and teachers, especially Artlink's William Frodé
de la Foret.
Robert Johnston
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