Today I stopped by the OSU bookstore to check out the new art books, and I found a fascinating little book about How to Look at Outsider Art. For those of you who aren't in the know, Outsider Art is a loose term used to group together art created by social outcasts, the homeless, the mentally ill, children, or anyone else lacking academic art training or working outside the established fine arts world. Primitivism is often linked with Outsider Art.
Flipping through the book, I was really struck by the art of Royal Robertson. Robertson was a sign painter in Louisiana who's drawings jump between his interest in futuristic fantasy and his obsession with his adulterous ex-wife, Adell. There is certainly something tragically funny about his art, but I also feel that his drawings represent the fundamental compulsion to express, a compulsion felt by every artist. Robertson's emotional turmoil over his lost wife drove him to create his art, and while his aesthetic taste for streamlined spaceships and castles dominate his visual style, the anger he felt towards Adell is an ever-present theme. His personal fantasy world becomes a bizarre mix of cosmic imagery, bitterness, biblical threats, and calendar-like numerical grids. (click for a larger image)
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