{"id":26210,"date":"2025-03-23T21:39:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T01:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=26210"},"modified":"2025-03-24T12:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T16:38:10","slug":"outsider-art-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2025\/03\/23\/outsider-art-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Outsider Art Fair in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The annual Outsider Art Fair<\/a> features \u201cself-taught, outsider, or art brut artists.\u201d Part of its delight is a chance to see works by deceased artists now in the history books\u2014like Ralph Fasanella, William Hawkins, Martin Ramirez, Winfred Rembert, Adolf Wolfli and Purvis Young\u2014and to meet living artists\u2014 like Pamela Smith of Vermont and Nancy Josephson of New York City, who\u2019s bead-bedazzled Honda art car was parked outside the entrance to the fair. About 70 exhibitors filled the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York from Feb. 27 to March 2, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New York artist and musician Nancy Josephson<\/a> (b. 1955) holds her beaded cremation urn at Lindsay Gallery\u2019s booth. Her \u201cJoy Ride\u201d art car<\/a> Honda parked out front of the fair\u2014one of at least nine that she\u2019s embellished over the years\u2014is covered in her signature rhinestones, sequins, beads, animal taxidermy forms, and found objects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aarne Anton at his Nexus Singularity of Pamona, New York, with Lonnie Holey’s sandstone head, Kevin House sculptures, and various sculptures by unknown artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Morton Bartlett (1909-1992), the “adopted only son of a Boston Brahmin couple,” sculpted curious hand-crafted plaster children, which he then photographed in narrative tableaux that often have the feel of children\u2019s-clothing-store display windows gone wrong \u2014 specifically the eerie sexual charge shot through the scenes. He and his dolls appeared in Yankee magazine in 1962, but remained little-known until they were rediscovered after his death in 1992. At its most affecting, Bartlett\u2019s art is a disconcerting combo of innocence, flirtation, and latent pedophilia. And the dolls\u2019 expressiveness\u2014irritation, anger, crying\u2014creeps under your skin. At Marion Harris, New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The son of a missionary and a carpenter, David Butler<\/a> (American, 1898\u201319970 filled his house and small yard with painted metal pieces like these at Fleisher Ollman Gallery of Philadelphia from the 1970s\u2014a rooster, a boat with propeller, a figure with weapons, a mother and child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charles Dellschau\u2019s April 1919 watercolor and pencil drawing “4348 Aero Nix\u201d at Galerie Pol Lemetais of Toulouse, France. Born in in Prussia on June 4, 1830, after immigrating to the United States, \u201che worked as a butcher and then retired to a small attic apartment in Houston, Texas,\u201d according to Baltimore\u2019s Visionary Art Museum<\/a>. \u201cHis earliest known artwork is contained in an illustrated diary dated 1899. He continued to work until 1922, filling at least 13 notebooks with drawings, watercolors, and collages depicting imaginative airships and an account of his mid\u201319th century involvement as a draftsman for the super secret (and potentially imaginary) Sonora Aero Club that possessed an antigravity fuel called, “NB Gas.” Dellschau’s tale was focused on the Club’s passionate desire to create humankind’s first navigable aircraft.\u201d His art discovered and salvaged from a landfill after his death at age 92 in April 1923. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI work with a visual language of lines, dashes, dots to create works that read as mysterious coded systems,\u201d Shane Drinkwater<\/a> of Queensland in his native Australia has written on his website. \u201cSome works read almost as topographical or astronomical maps, while others read as keys of symbols, arranged and categorized.\u201d This acrylic and collage on vintage sewing pattern paper was exhibited at Pulp of Holyoke, Massachusetts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWithout struggle, there is no reason to live. If you\u2019re not struggling, you don\u2019t deserve to be alive,\u201d said Ralph Fasanella<\/a> (1914\u20131997). The Ruffed Grouse Gallery of Narrowsburg, New York, offered a wall of his oil paintings from the 1940s to \u201890s. He was born in the Bronx and raised in New York City\u2019s Little Italy, before fighting in an all-volunteer Abraham Lincoln Brigade against Franco\u2019s army in the Spanish Civil War, and going on to be a union organizer for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America. He took up art at age 31, but was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, finding employment at a family-owned gas station in the Bronx. A 1972 magazine article brought him attention that allowed him to focus on making paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe think of them as having human emotions and I try to capture that. It\u2019s how we connect with the animals in our lives,\u201d Alison Friend<\/a> (b. 1973) of Britain\u2019s Lake District says of her anthropomorphic animal portraits, which were exhibited at Harman Projects, New York. She has illustrated more than 20 children\u2019s books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Catherine Garrigue, born in Paris in 1954, taught taught sculpture for 15 years before focusing on her own art-making. Jennifer Lauren Gallery of Manchester, United Kingdom, exhibited her 2004 fountain pen drawing “The House of Eternal Returns 3-3, Demeures les eternels retours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I Made Griyawan<\/a>\u2019s acrylic paintings revive traditional techniques of his native Batuan Bali, where he was born in 1979 (?) to artist parents. Diamond of New York exhibited his 2008 acrylic on canvas painting “Animals Forum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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William Hawkins<\/a> (1895-1990) learned to draw by copying illustrations from calendars and horse-auction announcements while growing up on a farm in Kentucky. After relocating to Columbus, Ohio, at age 21, he painted fantastic animals and cityscapes\u2014like this 1979 enamel painting on construction paper of the “Billy James Theater,\u201d exhibited by Ricco\/Maresca Gallery of New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mirian In\u00eaz da Silva (1938 – 1996) oil paintings on wood in the group exhibition \u201cFollow My Moves,\u201d featuring art from Brazil in the fair\u2019s Curated Space, in this case curated by S\u00e3o Paulo-based Mateus Nunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Simone Johnson\u2019s 2024 colored pencil drawing \u201cNYC Bodega Cats – Valentine’s Day Products\u201d was exhibited by Pure Vision Arts<\/a> of New York, which provides \u201cpeople with autism and developmental disabilities opportunities for artistic expression and to build public awareness of their important creative contributions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sarah Lee<\/a> (b. 1980), an Irish nurse based in London, England, exhibited acrylic on wood paintings, including at center “Barbarism begins at home,\u201d at The FolkArtwork Collective of Des Moines, Iowa. (She also had paintings at Pulp of Holyoke, Massachusetts.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Granda kiel malgranda mia mondo,” 2021 mixed media drawing, from the series “Tra Miaj Manoj,” by Margot (b. 1982). She “started drawing compulsively” in 2014, says Henry Boxer Gallery of Richmond, United Kingdom. “I believe that the doors [of perception] are our bodies and that we shouldn’t restrict ourselves to the boundaries of our bodies. We are much more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joe Massey (American 1895-?) pen and ink drawings made in Columbus, Ohio, penitentiary in 1946 and ’47. At Keith de Lellis Gallery. Each one includes a brief poem (clockwise from top left): “Gone and jump You little Imp And be a swimp.” “Were you speaking to me. I come to see.” “They play on his snout he can’t get out.” “She had a pull on a bull.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Grouches Lurk #1,” acrylic on synthetic fur, polymer clay, foam, bonds, steel, glue, 6-pound weights and mannequins, by Michael McGrath<\/a> (b.1977) of Rhinebeck, New York. It was featured by Court Tree Collective of Brooklyn, in front of Jacob Gerard’s “Russian Prison Cat” acrylic and oil pastel paintings (left) and Yool Kim (b. 1982) of Seoul, South Korea, acrylic paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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French artist Mina Mond<\/a>‘s 2025 artwork “this little light of mine\u201d featured at Galerie Pol Lemetais of Toulouse, France. \u201cA spiritualist artist,\u201d according to her website. \u201cHeiress of the V\u00f6lvas, seeresses of the pre-Christian Germanic religions, trance through ritual drum and lucid dreams provide her the necessary material for her creations. Epic frescoes, meticulously filled, his archetypal images become a spiritual journey for those who take the time to see. To see beyond the compulsive and cathartic profusion of the artist is to meditate on the secrets blown by the ancient minds of which she is the messenger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Takashi Nemoto (b. 1958) is a Japanese cartoonist and illustrator known for his intentionally vulgar compositions\u2014like (clockwise from top left): “Rude Style 1,” “Birth,” “Blooming Family Heaven II,” “Future Sperm Brazil,” “Silence Is Golden,” and “The Brain of the Back.” At Akio Nagasawa Gallery of Tokyo, Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The plants and animals of his native El Salvador inspire the art of Jose Nunez<\/a> (b. 1945)\u2014like “Hombres, horses, hores, pajaros,” 2011, marker, paint and glitteron plywood, at Dutton. \u201cHis work often depicts memories from time spent alone in the countryside taking care of his family’s cows. Out of those memories also come artistic investigations of mythological subjects like cadejo, a shadow dog that hunts at night and used to terrify him,\u201d according to San Francisco\u2019s Creativity Explored, which works with artists with developmental disabilities, and where Nunez has made art since 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The paintings of Mike Ousley<\/a> (b. 1976), like this one at Stellarhighway, are populated by scuzzy witches, farmers, whalers, devils and ne’er-do-wells scampering around forests, bayous, pastures and strip malls. Having earned an MFA from the University of Cincinnati, his pictures\u2014with titles like “When I Lost My Ass in a Card Game & Had to Walk Home Through the Cut in the Hill\u201d\u2014are rooted in Appalachian folk stories of his native Kentucky. \u201cSometimes when family would come in, as many as 15 might gather in a room and tell stories and drink coffee,\u201d he writes on his website. His art is funny and a bit trippy with maybe some melancholy in there too. (Also at James Barron Art of Kent, Connecticut.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The wor[l]d is looking to Amerrican for the answer,\u201d the Alabama artist, marine and evangelical minister Benjamin Franklin Perkins (1904-1993) wrote on his 1988 oil on canvas painting “The Future of America,\u201d at Pan American Art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Drawings by Indianapolis artist Chris Pyle<\/a> (b. 1956) at Hughes & Olsen of Sydney, Australia. He generally works in pencil, ink and gouache on the backs of record album sleeves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Martin Ramirez<\/a> (1895\u20131963) immigrated to the United States from his native Mexico in 1925, at age 30, leaving behind his wife Ana and their four children, to work on railroads and in California mines. He was diagnosed as bipolar after a 1931 arrest and was treated at a series of psychiatric institutions. He made nearly 300 drawings\u2014like this pencil, tempera and crayon drawing from about 1953 that was on view at Fleisher Ollman\u2014while being treated for schizophrenia at DeWitt State Hospital in northern California during the last 15 years of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The art of Winfred Rembert<\/a> (1945-2021) reflects his childhood in Georgia and his imprisonment and seven years working on a chain gang after he was arrested during a 1960s civil rights march. While imprisoned, he learned to work leather, which became his primary artistic medium upon his release\u2014as in his dyed, carved and tooled leather pieces “No Way Out,” 2011 (top), and “Watermelon,” 1998, at James Barron Art of Kent, Connecticut. He spent much of his later life residing in New Haven, Connecticut. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pamela Smith<\/a> of Bristol, Vermont, with her papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 sculpture and acrylic on masonite paintings\u2014with titles like “Joy Abounds,” “Three Wise Women,” “It’s Happening,” “Women of Wonder,” “Seven Fairy Godmothers\u201d\u2014 at Northern Daughters gallery (which shuttered<\/a> its brick-and-mortar outpost in Vergennes, Vermont, in 2023), which is run by Justine Jackson and Smith\u2019s daughter Sophie Pickens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Moustapha Souley’s African hair shop sign from 1950s or ’60s at The Ruffed Grouse Gallery of Narrowsburg, New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Diriku – Myself,” 2019, crayon, acrylic, pen, spiral and collage on paper, by Indonesian artist Imam Sucahyo<\/a> (b.1978) at Calvin-Morris Gallery of New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joseph Pepe Vignes<\/a> (1920-2007) played accordion for dances and worked in a factory. When the French artist turned 40, he took up drawing\u2014like these marker on paper artworks from the 1970s to 1990s of birds, fish, boat, car, bus. At Galerie Kahn, Ars-en-Re, France. (Note: The car drawing at bottom is by an anonymous artist.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Swiss artist Adolf Wolfli (1864-1930) woked primarily in farming before he made a series of attempts to assault girls ranging in age from 14 to 3. He spent a couple years in prison, before being admitted to a mental asylum in 1895, where he took up art after a few years (like this pencil drawing from 1917 exhibited by Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York) and resided as a patient until his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201cWoodbridge Figures\u201d are 4- to 7-inch tall wooden figures “discovered in a shed near the old clay pits of Woodbridge,” New Jersey, during excavations for a mall in late 1960s, reports Powers \/ Lowenfels Gallery of New York. Believed to have been carved between 1900 and 1920, \u201cmany of the larger adult figures have small, removable dowels atop their heads, the males with phallic pegs and the females with miniature naked torsos.” “The four figures exhibited at the fair were found separately from this primary cache in Irvington,” New Jersey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Around 1970, Purvis Young (1943-2010) began covering buildings across three blocks of Miami with his paintings of Jesus, cities, mountains, Haiti, slaves, soldiers, horses, angels. When those buildings were torn down, he began again on another street. \u201cI listen to talk shows on the radio and I listen to Black people talk and I paint what they say,\u201d Young told the Miami Herald in June 1974. \u201cThe way I put some of them crying is because Black people cry first and then the violence comes. I put some of them straight because they are reaching. They are trying to tell the establishment something. \u2026 They are going to get tired and when they do I\u2019m going to paint them angry.\u201d At the fair, Pan American Projects in Miami presented a wall of his paintings in mixed media on wood some dating to the 1970s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Allen Yu<\/a> (b. 1998), an autistic artist from Pennsylvania, joined the studio at Pennsylvania\u2019s Center for Creative Works, which serves adults with developmental disabilities, in 2020. He mainly creates in marker and pencil, like his 2024 drawing “McDonalds Food from Around the World.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Born in Italy in 1966, where he studied law and the arts, Domenico Zindato<\/a> has lived and worked in Mexico since 1997. Andrew Edlin Gallery of New York featured his drawings and paintings, including (clockwise from left): “Volo di una Freccia-Pensiero (Flight of an Arrow-Thought,” 2020; “An Infinitely Supple Tree Calling,” 2022; “Three Snakes Forms\/Conjure a Painting\/On Numinous Abstract Grounds,” 2024; and untitled, 2011. (Zindato\u2019s art was also featured by God\u2019s Love We Deliver.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At Kishka Gallery and Library of White River Junction, Vermont.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2025 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2025
2025 Outsider Art Fair at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York from Feb. 27 to March 2, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Koelsch Haus gallery of Houston at 2025 Outsider Art Fair, New York. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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2025 Outsider Art Fair at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York from Feb. 27 to March 2, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Michael
Michael McGrath’s “Grouches Lurk #1” at Court Tree Collective of Brooklyn during the 2025 Outsider Art Fair, New York. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The annual Outsider Art Fair features \u201cself-taught, outsider, or art brut artists.\u201d Part of its delight is a chance to see works by deceased artists now in the history books\u2014like Ralph Fasanella, William Hawkins, Martin Ramirez, Winfred Rembert, Adolf Wolfli and Purvis Young\u2014and to meet living artists\u2014 like Pamela Smith of Vermont and Nancy Josephson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[1318,1315,1313,1319,1317,1310,1316,1311,1320,1314,1312],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26210"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26260,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26210\/revisions\/26260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}