Nov 5, 2016 – Feb 5, 2017

The Speed Art Museum has received a major gift of 35 contemporary artworks from the Los Angeles-based collector Gordon W. Bailey. All 21 artists, most African-American artists from the southern United States, featured in this gift are making their debuts in the Speed Art Museum’s permanent collection. A selection of these works will be on view in the exhibition A New World in My View: Gifts from Gordon W. Bailey  in the Speed’s contemporary galleries on the second floor of the North building.

SPEED ART MUSEUM
North Building
2035 South 3rd Street
Louisville,
KY 40208

 www.speedmuseum.org 

Although there is an extensive body of literature on art therapy practice and theory in the clinical setting, there is much less written about the spontaneous creation of art by individuals who, through their own ingenuity, have used creativity as a form of self therapy in relation to grieving over a loss, coping with traumatic events, confronting stressful situations or dealing with mental illness. Painful emotions and traumatic experiences sometimes cannot be communicated in words, but the creating of things can be a medium for their expression, an external manifestation of inner turmoil or overwhelming experiences, and may help clarify issues or restore a sense of self-worth.  

To be clear in this context: creativity is not inevitably interwoven with suffering; tragedy and emotional pain are not prerequisites for artistic activity; and the creative outputs of the vast majority of individuals labelled “outsider artists”, “visionary artists”, “self-taught artists” and artists in general are not necessarily related to trauma or life-crisis. Although many of the individuals discussed in this study have used creativity as a way to cope with misfortune, they are not presented here as somehow representative of self-taught or “outsider” artists overall.