by Meaghan Louise

Created on: August 02, 2008   Last Updated: November 10, 2011

In a world where art dealers and art critics are obsessed with Graduate Degrees and Academic pursuits, it can seem to those outside this circle that there is nothing of value outside the insular world of the artist's elite. Fortunately, there are artists out there that remind us that really great art does not require a diploma. This is the world of Outsider Art.

While so many of todays' creative endevors appear to be caught in the never ending vortex of commercialism and conformity, outsider art hints at the ingenuity and splender that can be created outside the confines of academic rigidity.

In an article published by 'RIOT' magazine (issue 05) collector and curator of an online Outsider Art gallery John Yimin gave several examples of historically well-known and venerated artists who were considered outsider artists during their lifetimes. Artists such as Henri Rousseau and van Gogh were considered or made themselves outsiders of the art world during their lifetimes.

'A lot of people, some of them torturedly expressive, state that a movement began with the art brut of Jean Debuffett and outsider art followed when Roger Cardinal published his book. Many think that outsider art rests in the minds of the insane and manically driven. And it does. But it flows on the surface of other rivers. The modern definition of an 'outsider artist' is one that is self taught and someone that hasn't had any formal art education' states Yimin.

An outsider artist has something unusual (or controversial) to say and does so in a visual way. One of these artists to come to the fore in recent years is Willian Thomas Thompson, a visionary artist who Yimin describes as being "consumed and enhanced by the fire of his interpretation of the Holy Book". Thompson painted the Book of Revelation in a 300 foot painting that was hung at the American Visionary Art Museum and is now on a permanant 100 foot addition to the museums's collection.

In many ways, outsider art is the same as 'regular' art. It is the expression of an artist's world in their own terms. But outsider art differs in that the lives of the artists develop in a way that creates in them an overwhelming need in themselves to make visual things that excite their senses-like a drug or psychotic episode.

Outsider artists process life. They mold their experiences differently. This does not come out in those of us that are 'ordinary' artists. The outsider artist is truly extraordinary. A true alien amongst the natives.

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