Drawing parallels: N e w w o r k s o n pa p e r b y gallery artists january 26 - March 31, 2012 c av i n - m o r r i s g a l l e r y
Drawing Parallels: New Works on Paper by Gallery Artists January 26 – March 31, 2012 The attraction of a review like this is the extraordinary range of vision and circumstance in the subjects and worldviews of these artists. Ranging from classic Art Brut, including infrequently shown American contributors to the genre, to living artists who were never conceptually mainstream, these drawings read as visionary travelogues documenting individual journeys through parallel dimensions of experience and thought to the mainstream world. Artists exhibiting include Timothy Wehrle, Joseph Hofer, Christine Sefolosha, Ronnie White, Braulio Valentin Diez, Yukio Miyashita, Frank Jones, John Podhorsky, Chris Hipkiss and others.
Timothy Wehrle, Guitar Manifestations, 2011 Colored pencil, graphite on Ledger paper 8.5 x 8.5 in / 21.6 x 21.6 cm, TW 93
Timothy Wehrle, I Want John Cage to Perform at My Wedding, 2011 Colored pencil, graphite, on Ledger paper 8.5 x 8.5 in / 21.5 x 21.5 cm, TW 92
Timothy Wehrle, Blues Guitar 1-4, 2011 (1)Colored pencil, (2)watercolor, (3)acrylic, (4)homemade ink and acrylic on paper 7.75 x 7.75 in / 19.7 x 19.7 cm (ea.), TW 95
Timothy Wehrle, Sundays Mothership, 2012 Colored pencil, graphite, collage on paper 38 x 25 in / 96.5 x 63.5 cm, TW 99
Minoru Ohira, Regeneration #2, 2011 Mulberry wood 17 x 13 x 13 in / 43 x 33 x 33 cm, MOh 6
Jerry Bleem, Untitled, c. 1955 - 1986 Screen, staples 8.5 x 7.5 x 6.25 in / 21.5 x 19 x 16 cm, JBL 3
Kevin Sampson, Steamboat Willie, 2011 Mixed media 28 x 17 x 10 in / 71 x 43 x 25.5 cm, SK 182
JoAnne Russo, Revealed, 2006 Black Ash, beads, hooks and eyes, wire, waxed linen 27.5 x 11 x 11 in / 70 x 28 x 28 cm, JRu 1
Frank Jones, Untitled, n.d. Colored pencil, graphite on paper 14 x 22 in / 35.6 x 56 cm, FJ 915
Kevin Sampson, A Sand Dollar, 2010 Mixed media 40 x 13.5 x 7 in / 102 x 34 x 18 cm, SK 180
Sandra Sheehy, Untitled, 2011 Textile and mixed media 16 x 5 x 4 in / 41 x 13 x 10 cm, SSe 70
Sandra Sheehy, Untitled, 2011 Textiles and mixed media 22.5 x 12 x 9 in / 57 x 30.5 x 23 cm, SSe 71
Ronnie White, Piece of Floor in My Heart, 2007 Ink on paper 12 x 9 in / 30.5 x 23 cm, RWh 7
Ronnie White, Puzzling Complications, 1999 Acrylic on board 11.75 x 9 in / 30 x 23 cm, RWh 9
Braulio Valentin Diez, Untitled, 1997 Colored pencil on paper 18 x 12 in / 46 x 30.5 cm, BVD 7
Braulio Valentin Diez, Untitled, 1997 Colored pencil on paper 12 x 18 in / 30.5 x 46 cm, BVD 8
Chris HIpkiss, Long You Crack, 2006 Graphite on paper 6 x 8 in / 15 x 20 cm, ChH 285
Chris HIpkiss, Eyes Do Fut Nut, 2006 Graphite on paper 8 x 6 in / 20 x 15 cm, ChH 289
Chris HIpkiss, Warp Ausslisch, 2008 Graphite, silver pen on paper 8.25 x 5.75 in / 21 x 14.5 cm, ChH 309
Chris HIpkiss, Sux Fire From the A, 2008 Graphite, silver pen on paper 5.75 x 8.25 in / 14.5 x 21 cm, ChH 305
Lauren Sampson, Untitled, 2011 Ink on paper 10 x 7 in / 25.5 x 18 cm, LaS 30
Lauren Sampson, Untitled, 2011 Ink on paper 10 x 7 in / 25.5 x 18 cm, LaS 31
Agatha Wojciechowsky, Untitled, n.d. Graphite on paper 13.75 x 11 in / 35 x 28 cm, AWo 21
John Podorsky , Untitled, n.d. Graphite on paper 8.5 x 11 in / 21.5 x 28 cm, JPo 1
Zdenek Kosek, Untitled (Pivnice), 1990 Ink on paper 2.5 x 6 in / 6.5 x 15 cm, ZKo 45
Yukio Miyashita, English, 2009 Charcoal on paper 15 x 21.25 in / 38 x 54 cm, YMi 24
Franck K. Lundangi, Untitled, 2008 Watercolor, acrylic, and ink on paper 19.75 x 29.5 in / 25.5 x 18 cm, LaS 31
Anna Zemรกnkovรก Untitled, c. 1970s Pastel on paper 24 x 17 in / 61 x 43 cm, AZe 397
Jerry Wagner, How Long It Takes To Recognize The Design, c. 2004 Mixed media, collage on paper 9.5 x 8.25 in / 24 x 21 cm, JWa 20
Jerry Wagner, Take It Apart and Patch It Together Your Way, c. 2000-20006 Mixed media, collage on paper 8 x 9.5 in / 20.5 x 24 cm, JWa 52
Josef Hofer, Untitled, 2010 Pencil, colored pencil on paper 17.5 x 24 in / 44 x 60 cm, JHo 29
Josef Hofer, Untitled, 2005 Pencil, colored pencil on paper 19.7 x 27.5 in / 50 x 70 cm, JHo 32
Josef Hofer, Untitled, 2008 Pencil, colored pencil on paper 25 x 34.65 in / 62.5 x 88 cm, JHo 38
Zbynek Semerak, Untitled, 1988 Gouache on paper 17.75 x 24.5 in / 45 x 62 cm, ZSe 15
Scottie Wilson, Untitled, n.d. Marker on paper 15 x 9 in / 38 x 23 cm, SWi 1
Native American, Ledger Book Ends, c. 1890s Graphite, colored pencil on paper, cotton 11.5 x 12 in / 29 x 30.5cm, NAm 117
Top: Below:
Leos Wertheimer, Opus 303 Amerika Lokomotiva, n.d. Graphite and colored pencil on paper 22.5 x 73 in / 57 x 185.5 cm, LWer 2 Leos Wertheimer, Opus 350 Peru-Trida-Andy, n.d. Graphite and colored pencil on paper 17.75 x 86 in / 45 x 218.5 cm, LWer 3
Christine Sefolosha, Departure, 2011 Ink and colored pencil on Fabriano paper 41 x 55 in / 104 x 140 cm, CSe 88
Christine Sefolosha, Carcasse, 2011 OIl monotype on canvas 58 x 81.5 in / 147 x 207cm, CSe 90
Sylvain Corentin, White Tower II, 2011 Wood, canvas, wire, yarn, glue, paint 75 x 13 x 12 in / 190.5 x 33 x 30.5 cm, SCo 3
Artist Biography
Jerry Bleem Jerry Bleem, an artist, teacher, writer, Franciscan friar and Catholic priest, earned his M.F.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his M.Div. from the Catholic Theological Union at Chicago. As an artist, Bleem examines the cultural construction of meaning by looking at what we discard and by transforming the nonprecious through time-intensive accumulation. His work serves to highlight the relationship between value and identity, and to consider assumed ideals. The resulting work–both 2- and 3-dimensional surfaces–mines topics ranging from apprehension to beauty, ecology to politics. The Illinois Arts Council has recognized his work with five individual artist fellowships. Bleem has also been awarded an Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship and numerous residencies including the Roswell Artist-in-Residence grant. Bleem has taught in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2000. During the 2008-9 academic year, Arizona State University named him a visiting professor in its School of Art. His interests span historic and ethnographic textiles, the dynamics of collecting for artistic production, and material culture from popular and denominational religion. In his writing, Bleem investigates the intersection of art and religion in a monthly column for U. S. Catholic magazine; his articles have also appeared in SDA Journal, Fiberarts and exhibition catalogs.
Sylvain Corentin Sylvain Corentin is an artist living in the South of France. In mapping his creative process, Sylvain takes inspiration from the fantastical, constructing imaginary architectures and huts in his mind that he then builds in reality. With these, his “anarchitectures”, he evokes the habitats of the first ages, and sometimes constructions of a dreamed future. In creating these places, Sylvain seeks to build worlds filled with mapped territories, places bounding with stories and pocked with scars from the history of humanity, carving markers of time and experience into our weary planet. His sculptures build a bridge between the image of a utopian past and reality of our future, to erase the envy that exists between these two concepts, with hopes that we find beauty in seeing the world as it exists now, without projections.
Braulio Valentin Diez Born in Vera Cruz, Mexico, Braulio Diez had a poor but happy childhood among a big family of thirteen brothers and sisters, his parents and assorted other relatives. He drew pictures in school but stopped when he dropped out after the third grade. Diez was a temperamental man and in 1969, while traveling the southwestern United States and working as a tractor driver and ranch hand, he got into a violent argument with his foreman and killed him; Diez was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. He started drawing in the county jail- with no money or access to art supplies; he rummaged through the trash for discarded paper and bits of pencils, pens and crayons- anything he could use. He made art twenty-three hours a day, often skipping meals and rarely sleeping or speaking to anyone. In 1984, a new warden initiated an art program for inmates and Diez came out of his isolation to participate. He took paints and large widths of canvas back to his cell, unrolling a few feet at a time, and painted panoramic scenes of Mexico past and present, real and imagined. Unfortunately, a few scuffles with inmates and officers caused him to be transferred to another prison with no art program, and then eventually to a maximum-security prison known as The Walls. There, again with no money for art supplies he made drawings on the backs of inmate request forms and on the state envelopes that came in the welfare bags. He drew on hundreds of envelopes, many printed with OKLAHOMA STATE REFORMATORY, Protecting You is Our Mission, embellishing them ironically with fantasies of beauty and happiness- hearts, roses with faces, butterflies and faces with chrysalis bodies waiting for their wings. He sometimes wrote dates in the future or confusing dates in the margins of his drawings – like “1094-93. His speech and letters were difficult to decipher and he was often frustrated at not being understood. He believed strongly that witnesses saw his victim alive and that he would at any moment be deported to Mexico as a free man. In the meantime, he lived via his paintings in another place, fantastical with colors and abundant with flowers, inhabited by sweet and noble beings.
Chris Hipkiss Chris Hipkiss (né Payen) was born into a successful working-class family in Uxbridge, West London. It was there, taking frequent boating trips up the Thames, that he first began a love of nature and science that would later heavily influence his artwork. Despite good academic promise, he left school at age 16 to become an apprentice model-maker at his father’s joinery and pattern-making company. Outside the joinery, he had begun to express his artistic talents in his free time on leaving school. He developed an admiration for the non-classical, detailed landscapes of artists such as Bosch, Pieter Brueghel, Hogarth and Lowry. At the age of eighteen, Hipkiss met his wife-to-be, Alpha (née Meryl Abbott - and also eighteen), and three years later they were married. It was during a trip to Paris that he hit upon the style that would develop into that of his current work; whilst the detail had been there before, Hipkiss remembers it as a breakthrough in terms of perspective and his own interpretation of landscape. It was in the States that Hipkiss began to garner significant interest and make sales. His career has progressed steadily; in the 90s, he produced three more outsize works - London, Europe and Mongrel Global 37 - all of which have been acquired by public collections. In 2001 - just after the fall of The Towers in NY - Chris and Alpha moved to France where they had bought an old house in a village near Montpellier. His love of the landscapes and wildlife of England has given much inspiration for his work; however Hipkiss likes to draw what he sees, albeit through his own lens, and a need for variety in this input has fuelled a desire to see many types of scenery. The plains, waters and mountains of the lush French Mediterranean are thus beginning to become evident in the artist’s newer work. The move, according to him, was also prompted by a desire to feel more European and to learn a new language in its rightful context. Alpha is now a writer and publisher of specialist fiction and the couple spend the majority of their time working in the same room in the company of their four cats. Biography by Romy Nath, a friend of the artist, July 2005.
Josef Hofer Josef Hofer was bornin 1945, deaf and with multiple disabilities. Now in his sixties, he lives in the care home of the Lebenshilfe Oberösterreich in Ried, Austria. For many years he attended a basket-making workshop, but in 1997 he was introduced to a weekly art group, where his great talent for drawing became apparent. Since then he has put all his energy into his art. Every day, ‘Pepi’, as Hofer is affectionately known, sits at his desk, drawing tirelessly and completely unaided. Pencils in different colours, sharpener and eraser are always in exactly the same place, and he has access to paper in various sizes. He does not appear to mind whether his carer is present or not, but whenever he finishes a new drawing he puts it carefully aside and proudly shows it to her later: her admiration and praise mean a lot to him. He works continuously and with great enthusiasm. His pictures seem to ‘pour’ out of him, and it is hard to get him to stop working so that he can have lunch or go home. To begin with, Hofer drew agricultural machines and figures which resembled ‘Terminator’ on remnants of wallpaper and office paper. His human figures were always built up in the same way: first he would draw a naked body; then he would dress it in several layers, as if he were putting clothes on it; finally, he would add a kind of protective covering, with screws on both shoulders, as if to ‘lock up’ the figure. One day, another member of the art group was copying a female nude from a picture. Hofer kept glancing at his neighbour and eventually he himself began to draw a naked figure. The result was astonishing, because what he had depicted was a male body. Ever since that day, Hofer has not ‘locked up’ his figures. Instead, he expresses his curiosity and interest in the male body through his drawings. He proceeds with a child-like lack of inhibition and an innocence which most of the viewers of his pictures have long lost. He applies the same calm precision to the drawing of his nudes as he does to the depiction of a tractor. -excerpt from “Unlocking the Human Form; Josef Hofer” by Elisabeth Telsnig, Raw Vision #55, 2006\
Frank Jones Frank Jones was born to an Indian mother and a Black father, both of whom deserted him by the time he was three years old. He was taken in and raised by an elderly woman named Willie Dean Baker and her neighbor, Della Gray. After Della Gray was found murdered, Jones was convicted of the crime and spent the remainder of his life in prison. Those who knew Jones agree that he was innocent of the crime (which is generally thought to have been committed by one of his mistress’ sons). Jones was regarded as a gentle and quiet prisoner who spent much of his free time drawing. He claimed to have been born with a veil over his eyes, a traditional sign of one who must endure the onus of psychic insights and visions. Extracting from these visions, Jones drew “spirits” trapped inside “Devil Houses” with names like “Jap Devil House,” “German Devil House,” “Viet Nam Devil House,” and “Black Devil House.” The blue and red creatures contained in the houses set the structure vibrating, but never enough to break through the walls and free themselves.
Zdenek Kosek Born 1949 in what was then Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), Zdenek Kosek worked as a typographer and drew occasional satiric cartoons. At about the age of forty he became afflicted with schizophrenia and had to quit his job. The particular form of his illness was the conviction that he had a duty to master meteorological problems and had a central role to play in the maintenance of universal order. Under the influence of this condition, Kosek began to produce the drawings for which he is now known. I use the term “drawing” advisedly, because these works hover between map, diagram, chemical formula, and sketch. Compositionally they appear as conglomerations of cartoon thought bubbles, with directional arrows, dotted connecting lines, numbers, and phrases. Kosek’s figures do not so much describe a set of relations as act them out, or perhaps constitute them. One gets the impression that the artist may believe in a preexisting order but that this order keeps shifting as the drawings are made. What gives the productions their desperate poignancy is the sense that order is ceaselessly unmade by the intelligence that seeks to articulate it. Kosek’s drawings participate in the reality they depict. In truth, they don’t really depict at all. What obsesses such artists is the intimacy of the things of the world with each other, their wholeness and indivisibility. The poet Friedrich Hölderlin called this the realm of the Gods: a realm of pure being without reflection in which all aspects of reality are and are united. In Kosek’s case, unity is the given of existence but also the thing that must be defended, with the artist at the center of the defense. If not for his signifying, the unity of world cannot be confirmed and it must dissolve. We do not ask of art whether it is true, but whether it organizes its contents in ways that open onto our experience or, rather rend our experience open and make us see it as we couldn’t before. The poet puts together words in ways that refuse to die into literalness. The artist creates images that make use intimate with disparate things, things we never imagined belonged together, until they meet in him, in his art, and finally in us. -excerpt from Art On Paper article “Weather Magic: Making Sense of Zdenek Kosek’s Drawings” by Lyle Rexer, 2009
Franck Lundangi Franck Lundangi’s was born in 1958, in the war-torn Angola, a homeland which he fled with his family as a young boy. They took refuge in Zaire, where he grew up to pursue a professional football career. Football brought him to France, where he continued until1990, when health problems obliged him to quit. Though his football career had ended, it was here that Lundangi discovered his passion for art, fueled by his many artist friends and his own wife, who was also a painter. Lundangi’s talent began to emerge through drawing. In 1995 he took up painting and then sculpting five years later. Inspired and influenced by dreams and memories of Africa, Lundangi’s works revolve around a simple yet poetic and profound world. Compositions of elegantly traced figures are accompanied by plants, animals and decorative elements poignantly posed on paper. Driftwood and hand-crafted paper are his canvases, giving life to a pure, delicate and revealing imaginary world. Artists, poet and philosopher, Franck Lundangi’s works explore personal themes life, death and love. Silence is his main inspiration. In his own words, “Silence is part of me, I hope that my paintings emanate a certain silence, an inner peace that is part of my being. Through my art I search to evoke a certain harmony between spirit, man and nature. It is the fusion of these elements surrounding us that I attempt to achieve.”
Yukio Miyashita Yukio Miyashita was born in 1973. Crayon, pastel, sumi ink, and paints- Miyashita utilizes all sorts of painting materials to tackle a bright white paper. He concentrates all his energies and spreads the colors onto the paper by using his whole body. Thus, his contentment and satisfaction are lively conveyed through his work as well. Despite the length to be complete, either one day or a week, each of his works draws magnetic attraction. Depending on the medium or motif he uses, the style of the work is completely altered and different, which creates the uniqueness of his world.
J.B. Murray In his early seventies, J.B. Murray (1908 – 1988), a quiet African-American man from rural Georgia who could neither write nor read, suddenly began to write, paint, and draw flowing yet often erratic abstractions. Believing that he had received a vision from God, Murray suddenly began to create art. Murray believed that the Holy Spirit was moving his hand and that God had a message for him to deliver to the world. Murray created ghostly figures with transfixed eyes and long, vertical bodies that converge toward the center of a painting of brightly colored abstraction. To Murray these elongated shapes were “the people what is lying, them is the people what is living like God don’t exist.” He often repeated the words, “Give me a louder word up,” as he looked through a jar of well water at his colorful daubs of paint, erratic dots, and his script hidden in between larger shapes, as people from all over the country visited him in Mitchell, Georgia. To him the work was “the language of the Holy Spirit direct from God.” Within seven years after Murray began his first marks on discarded materials, his art was being shown nationally and occasionally internationally, and is now included in various collections in the world. Murray shared the message of salvation through his figures, expressed his veneration for the Word of God through his script, and counseled people in his home through the guidance of the Holy Spirit as he gazed through a jar of water. His southern evangelical view of the world not only gave him a reason to create as he followed his “call”, but deeply influenced the form, components, and the ritual connected to his art. -Excerpt from J.B. Murray and His Art, by Mary Padgelek.
Minoru Ohira Minoru Ohira was born in 1950 in what was then Murokawa Village, Kitakanbara County, in the Niigata Prefecture, near the city of Tainai. Starting out studying sculpture at Kanazawa College of Art, he continued with a graduate degree at Tokyo University of the Arts. In 1979 he moved to Mexico, where he studied for three years at La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving. There his surroundings, combined with a growing interest in Aztec and Maya, began to fundamentally shape the nature of his artwork. He has subsequently settled in Los Angeles, where his work is heavily informed by the multitudes of cultures he has experienced, from Japan to Mexico to America. In his art, Ohira shapes his sculptures from materials that he finds in his immediate surroundings, whether it be dead branches discarded on the roadside, or scraps left at a construction site. In this way, Ohira transcends tradition yet again to suggest a cyclical nature in the world, using objects that were once dead, resurrected with new life.
John Podhorsky Very little is known about the fascinating mind and life of John Podhorsky. Believed to be working in California as a carpenter in the 1950s, his work was discovered by Dr. Tarmo Pasto, a psychologist and a professor of art at California State College at Sacramento. Podhorksy was probably an inmate at one of the institutions in which Dr. Pasto was active. His work consists of drawings and paintings on paper, generally of imaginary architectural structures, bridges, houses, and small machines which are occasionally accompanied by animals and trees. His interest in building and woodworking seems evident in his concern with structural details. There were also some drawings of human figures of undetermined sex, often accompanied by delusional comments.
JoAnne Russo “With a basket career spanning three decades, I’m looking back at what I’ve accomplished and forward to what I’ll achieve. My previous baskets were exciting, fun and creative within a disciplined tradition. It’s time to let go of that safe and comfortable work and delve into larger, less controlled shapes and incorporate more of the textile skills I’ve learned throughout my life. It’s an exciting time and my new creations are as bold and spirited as ever. As an avid observer of nature and incessant collector of diverse material - from acorns to zippers - I continually gather interesting items to use on my baskets. In this new series, each one-of-a-kind piece is woven tightly and precisely, with added elements thoughtfully chosen to display order and harmony. In this piece, I’ve sew stacks of beads and a zipper to add interest and texture. My new sculptural work suggests a narrative; a view of the human form expressed through a plaited form. “ - JoAnne Russo
Kevin Sampson Kevin Sampson’s work is made of reworked and transformed found objects including cement, bones, tiles and various painting mediums including acrylics, oils and stains. Additionally he includes bones and tiles as he sees them as part of the conceptual vocabulary of impermanence and memory. His subjects are the people that he has known; people who had been part of this world; and people who have lived lives that he thought ought to be remembered. By constructing vessels of physical memory inspired by Caribbean and the Southern United States, he is actually making works that are about family, extended or otherwise. They are about aging, about learning to see again and about surrender as it relates to freeing oneself
Lauren Sampson Lauren Maja Nicole Sampson was born in Elizabeth, NJ on May the 3, 1983; her parents are Pamela (deceased) and Kevin Blythe Sampson a prominent artist. Lauren is a graduate of Newark, NJ’ s prestigious Arts High School (vocal); she later attended the Fashion Institute of Technology where she graduated with B.F.A in Restoration of Antiquities.
Lauren’s family was beset by tragedy at a very early age, when she lost her brother at age seven followed by her mother four years later. Lauren began making her drawings as a way of coping with the loss. Lauren has secretly been making these drawings for years. Recently as her career as fundraising professional began to prosper and the responsibilities in her position became more stressful, Lauren revisited her drawings with a vengeance. Utilizing the healing nature of these drawings, Lauren continues to construct and render these obsessive, soul saving prayers. Although Lauren is in many ways a child of the art world (or anti-art world), having grown up with the many gifted and talented friends of her father; she still envisioned herself working as an art administrator, being an artist never entered her mind. Lauren was the Annual Fund Manager at The Cooper Union for three years and she is currently the Director of Annual Giving at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.
Christine Sefolosha Christine Sefolosha was born in1955 in Montreaux, Switzerland. As a girl Sefolosha develop a fascination with horses and eventually became an equestrian, marrying a veterinary doctor. After some time they moved down to South Africa, where she worked as his assistant. After nine years in Africa, Sefolosha returned home to Montreaux. She continues to reside there to this day. Of her work, Sefolosha states: “Far from being a matter of control -- of carefully relating stroke to stroke by sheer original intent as we were told -- art is far more often alive when it is a dance between chance and control, suggestion and vision. Those who leave the least room for error are, at best, fine craftsmen (and at worst hacks) but real inspiration springs largely from doubt and confusion. The origins of the word itself hint at this: evocatively possessed, the ancient oracles sat in their tripods over their sulphurous subterranean vents breathing (i.e., inspiring) fumes and generating non-sense which their managers—the real artists --translated into revelation. Augurs found insight in nervous flights of birds, random heaps of entrails or scorched bones from farm animals. To seek inspiration, in other words, is to trust chance, to welcome the random, and, proceeding in spite of doubt, to see opportunity and intent in the accidental. The muse is most likely to withhold her generous company at the very moment too much control is exerted.”
Zbynek Semerák A part of the movement of Czech Outsider Artists, Zbynek Semerák was born into the working class, receiving very little schooling. After elementary school, Semerák was apprenticed as a textile machinery technician. However, because of his fragile health, he could not continue such a straining job and was forced to quit. Afterwards he worked in the local theatre as a builder for the stage and as a scene painter, and it was working in this creative environment that initially cultivated his own artistic nature. He finally retired from the life of a stagehand in 1977 and spent his remaining years devoted to his drawings. His diluted Indian ink drawings are extremely delicate; some of them are enhanced by gouache in rich colours, sometimes scraped and painted over again, resembling manuscripts filled with enigmatic writings, similar to hieroglyphs. Only once we look closer, we can decipher historical or mythical themes, articulated around one central figure, probably a sort of self-portrait. Some drawings represent imaginary architectures or technical inventions : locomotives or planes. The sheet is completely filled, divided by ornamental motifs similar to emblems, elements coming from different cultures and religions.
Sandra Sheehy Sandra Sheehy was born in 1965 in Norfolk, England. Although she enjoyed painting and drawing all her life, she stopped these activities after she took a course in illustration while at school, because she said it made her lose confidence in her own creativity. Ms. Sheehy relays: “A couple of years later [after the illustration course] I found some embroidery threads in a shop. All the colors arranged neatly side-by-side, each separate but affecting the color next to it. They were so appealing, pure and unconnected to any work I had tried before. I bought them and made something and my hands were very happy. I made more and more and gradually arrived at the work . . . I make today. The material is stretched over a wooden hoop and I have no plan to execute, only the need to make something. I always work on one piece at a time; it would be like a spell broken if I hopped from one to another. I always seem to start in the center and it grows outwards. I feel a great sense of urgency when working and I feel very driven towards a goal. But I never seem to know what that goal is. It’s a feeling I have to express. They are not representations of any one thing but I think they represent my inner self. The part of myself that very rarely comes to the surface in everyday life but is a unique constant deep inside. They are expressions of my love and wonder at what is around me. The pulsing world, the microscopic life that teems around and within our hearts, organs and the stars, us everything to marvel at and revel in.”
Jerry Wagner Jerry Wagner was born April 23, 1939 in South Providence, RI. His father was a tailor and had a great influence on Jerry’s life. As a child he was deeply enthralled by the magic of the postwar 40’s. He loved the radio. He notes his favorite programs were: The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Superman, Sam Spade, Amos and Andy and Jack Benny. He studied forestry at the University of Rhode Island. In the 50’s, he was very inspired by Fats Domino, Little Richard and Elvis. Music, especially the Blues has been a vital part of his life. Though out of his element as an Officer, he reached the rank of First Lieutenant while stationed in the Army’s Special Service Office in Heidelberg Germany 1962-1964. He was married at that time and had two children. He later divorced and lived in Woodstock, New York off and on throughout the 60’s. When his father died in 1971, he poured his energy into studying the Torah. He studied four months at the Yeshiva in Morristown. But he realized that he didn’t have what it took to be a Rabbi. From 1972-1974 he sold everything and “took a walk” around most of New England. In these years he also spent time in New York City, Miami, Louisiana, and walked from San Diego to Monterey, California; all the while meditating on the Chumash and his own interpretations of the Torah. After this period he moved to Bar Harbor, Maine and worked odd jobs, such as dishwashing. Jerry’s body of work consists of hundreds of drawings, wood sculptures and notebooks. His notebooks document weather, timelines, ideas, observation on nature, other notes and abstract thought processes. Every page is covered with diagrams, abbreviations, codes and personal formulas. His work reflects nature and the spiritual aspects of life. He is fascinated by the parallels between the Torah and ancient Hopi beliefs. His collaged drawings incorporate the varying elements of his work from the past thirty years. They contain his personal observations on places, life forces and ideas derived from American Indian lore, world religious philosophy, and mysticism of all kinds. They may include designs for wood carvings, landscapes, figures, enigmatic scenes, and cut paper collage. Many have a patina of age and handling. The media is usually acid free rubber cement, Craypas mixed with spit, pencil and ink on found cardboard.
Timothy Wehrle Tim Wehrle’s work explores dream narratives that dance between the visionary experience, music, and the politics of resisting marginalization. His new drawings poetically unwrap the concept of a Cold War of the soul, in a new world where the artist-citizen is constantly acted upon by encroaching depersonalization but is able to resist and ultimately strike back utilizing dreams, visions and art-making. Wehrle’s style is evolving, becoming richer and more packed with metaphorical images and ideas. They are contemporary illuminated manuscripts whereby the drawings have internalized the prose without sacrificing the narrative. We can listen to these drawings as much as we can see them; they carefully control their synaesthesia. Wehrle idealizes and reinvents the world through his work, sweetening it to the point of near-fetishism. As the artist himself claims “In my work I render everything with sweetness: faces, colors, characters, settings, everything… Because this is a world I have created and to me it is real and the sweetness in the work is the sweetness that has been missing in the world around me.” Wehrle manages to combine inner and outer worlds in such a way that we are drawn in and able to reveal our own potential to be healed by his work. -by Shari Cavin
Leos Wertheimer Leos Wertheimer was born in 1956 in Prerov, Czech Republic. Upon reaching adulthood, he was enrolled in industrial secondary school and apprenticed to an auto mechanic. He began working for Czech Railways, and over the years took on various odd jobs, mostly to do with mechanics. His longest stint on a job was that of a fireman. He is single, and continues to live with his parents in Prerov, having been forced into early retirement due to mental troubles. In 1997, at the encouragement of his psychologist, he began to create intensely detailed and technical drawings of various types of railway engines on strips of wrapping paper. The drawings are remarkable in that they retain complete technical accuracy, but at the same time contain a marked originality full of emotion. On each piece Wertheimer is careful to mark the scale, the model of the locomotive, any technological details, and interestingly enough, he often marks the number of hours it took him to finish the drawing.
Ronnie White Ronnie White was born in 1959 in Fall River, Massachusetts. He dropped out of school after the sixth grade, and quickly fell into a life of drugs and crime. He became hooked on multiple substances—“I was hooked on sniffing glue and maybe that’s where my style of art originated. When I sniffed I could see and hear things nobody else could experience, like an old rag stained with grease became an escaped puppet from the circus. It spoke to me and did tricks. I was in a world that I became obsessed with.” White has been in and out of prisons since the age of seventeen, serving time for burglary, car theft, and shoplifting among other things. Unable to adapt to life outside of institutions, every time he is released, he finds himself once again embroiled in a life of crack cocaine, heroin, and alcohol addiction. After attempting to escape custody on his latest arrest, he was given a maximum sentence with a release date in 2027. In prison, White spends much of his time drawing. He is a prodigy with a ballpoint pen. In the shadows of his dim cell, he lets the ink in his pen take over in free form, with White watching for “the spirits of the medium”—ethereal forms with unique and minute detail. “Lately,” he says, “I’m drawing the things the convicts expect an artist to draw—clowns, flowers, animals. I do it to get what I need from the canteen.” “I know deep in my soul I have the makings of a master in my blood. I realize this because when I’m working sometimes I get these excitable feelings like I’m really on to something. The path is easy to follow. It’s not my mind that gives me these messages, it’s my soul. I want my work to be recognized for what it truly is, as pure as snow.” “Art is the only thing in my life that didn’t get me into trouble.”
Scottie Wilson Scottie Wilson (1888 – 1972), born Louis Freeman, was a English outsider artist born in Glasgow, Scotland, known particularly for his highly detailed style. An enigmatic character, one of his favorite sayings was “Life - It’s all writ out for you, the moves you make...” Wilson dropped out of school when he was eight years old to sell newspapers on the street to help his family, and then later served during WWI on the Western Front. After the war, he moved to Toronto, Canada to open a second hand shop. At age 44, he began doodling with one of the fountain pens he sold in this shop and discovered his passion for art. He described the moment as such: “I’m listening to classical music one day- Mendelssohn- when all of a sudden I dipped the bulldog pen into a bottle of ink and started drawing- doodling I suppose you’d call it – on the cardboard tabletop. I don’t know why. I just did. In a couple of days- I worked almost ceaselessly – the whole of the tabletop was covered with little faces and designs. The pen seemed to make me draw, and them images, the faces and designs just flowed out. I couldn’t stop – I’ve never stopped since that day.” After receiving recognition for his work in Toronto, he abruptly returned to London in 1945 and continued to exhibit his drawings for modest fees. A few months after his arrival he was persuaded by dealers to show in galleries, and had a solo exhibition at the Arcade Gallery in London, shown concurrently with other works by such 20th century artists as Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, amongst others. Wilson’s rejected commercialism however, and he continued to sell his work on the street for a minute fraction of the prices the gallery owners were asking. He said of the working-class customers he attracted, “They’re the intellect, you know”.
Agatha Wojciechowsky “It’s not my work you see here. I really have nothing to do with it. This is the work of different entities who take over and step into my body, directing my hand. I’m seventy… I’m from Germany; my husband was Polish, but what’s in a name? I have been in this country since 1923. I’m an instrument of the spirit world. The spirit world is mingling in the material world. In Germany there is a lack of mediums. During World War II many mediums were thrown in the gas chamber. Now they are all afraid; there are some, but you can’t get to them. When I was a child, I would sit at my desk and watch the spirit world. I never paid attention to the teacher but my spirit teacher helped me learn my lessons. My spirit teacher is Sir Isaac Newton. We all believe in God as our father. We are spirit children clothed in a material body. There is only one power— God is in everything. He is all.” -Excerpts from interviews conducted by Cammy Sessa (The Virginian-Pilot), and Sylvia Smith (New Era), in 1966 and 1970, respectively
Anna Zemánkóvá Anna Zemánkóvá was born in 1908 in Olomouc, Moravia. Although interested in drawing from a young age, she was discouraged by her father, a hairdresser, who wanted her to follow a more lucrative career. At his suggestion, she studied dentistry from 1923-26 and then worked as a dental technician until 1933. At age 25, she married First Lieutenant Bohumir Zemanek and stopped practicing: in those days it was not socially acceptable for her to continue to work after her marriage. The young couple moved to the town of Brno, a major manufacturing center, and had four children. Although one son died at age four, two sons and one daughter are still living. The war years, with the Nazi occupation, were difficult; by 1948, with the Communists in firm control, the Zemaneks moved to Prague. Anna spent her time caring for her family, generally ignoring the external political turmoil. Her passions were listening to classical music and reading; she preferred mysteries and, above all, the von Daniken books about aliens visiting earth. During the 1950s, as she approached menopause, her personality changed: she began to have ‘fits’ and periods of severe depression. In 1960, her son Bohumil, an artist, suggested that she should try a hobby to take her mind off her troubles and refocus her energies now that her children were grown. Knowing she lacked art training, yet remembering reports of an earlier interest, he brought her pastels and paints. She ignored the latter, but began drawing, and immediately impressed him with her efforts. He encouraged her, and brought her quality materials with which to work. She continued pursuing her newfound artistry until her death in 1986.
Copyright Š 2012 Cavin-Morris Gallery Cavin-Morris Gallery 210 Eleventh Ave, Ste. 201 New York, NY 10001 t. 212 226 3768 www.cavinmorris.com Catalogue design: Mimi Kano & Jurate Veceraite