Newly Discovered James Castle Drawings, Idaho
source: New York Times
Drawings by James Castle were recently found by city officials in Boise, Idaho, in the walls of the artist's home. During a restoration, a team of four from the city arts and history department found wall cavities that hadn’t been seen for 75 years or more. In a small crevice at the bottom of a living room wall, ten drawings were discovered, along with an eleventh drawing in a bedroom. All of the sketches were made with soot and spit. The works included a detailed exterior portrait of the house where it was discovered. There was also a series of smaller sketches on what appeared to be an envelope.
All of the works will be on display when the restored Castle house opens to the public on April 28.The City of Boise and the James Castle Collection are currently hosting “A Place Called Home,” an inaugural three-day symposium on Castle’s life and works, April 26–27.
Jessica Park at Bennington Museum, VT
until May 28, 2018
Jessica Park (b. 1958), a native of Williamstown MA, Park is an internationally acclaimed artist on the autism spectrum, best known for her depictions of architecture. "Enthusiasms: Personal Paintings by Jessica Park" features a lesser-known aspect of Park’s work, reflecting her personal interests in popular culture, astronomical phenomenon, and prismatic lights and colour, often configured in tightly controlled grid-like structures.
Bennington Museum
75 Main Street, Bennington, VT 05201
benningtonmuseum.org
EOA Conference 2018, UK
May 4–6, 2018
Outside In will host the European Outsider Art Association Conference at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. This year’s conference focuses on the Artist’s Voice. Presenters will include the Living Museum (Netherlands), Out by Art (Sweden) and Venture Arts (UK) with participation by Garvald Artists (Scotland), Creative Minds (UK), Arts Project Australia (Australia) and Blue Circus (Finland).
Pallant House Gallery
9 N Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TJ, UK
www.outsidein.org.uk
Bobby Baker
Yvon Taillandier at Galerie GNG, Paris
until May 19, 2018
See works by the late Parisian artist, author and critic Yvon Taillandier (1926–2018) at Galerie GNG in Paris.
Galerie GNG
3 rue Visconti, 75008 Paris, France
www.galeriegng.com
Featured Artist:
Sawada Shinichi (b. 1982)
Sawada Shinichi was born in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. After a few years of study in a specialised school, he was received into an institution for people with intellectual disabilities in Kusatsu. Shinichi is autistic and hardly speaks. He found employment in the hospital bakery, and later began attending a workshop where he works with clay. Working in silence alongside a few other patients, Shinichi creates his sculptures in a small potter’s cabin in the wilderness, a few kilometers from the institution.
It is not clear whether his works are preconceived but he creates his pieces calmly and rhythmically, using the same precise, slow gestures. Working steadily without hesitation, he finishes even large pieces in four or five days. He fashions the clay into many small spikes, which he applies to his magical and monstrous creatures.
courtesy NO-MA Kyoto
With a smile on his face and intense concentration, Shinichi covers the surface of his figures with these spikes, densely juxtaposed. The sculptures are put into a wood oven which is ignited only twice a year, and gives them their reddish-brown finish.
Shinichi’s fantastical sea-monsters and mythical demons seem to be the expression of a personal mythology. He lines up his creatures on the shelves of the makeshift studio where he works twice a week.
Shinichi Sawada is featured in Raw Vision 23 (PDF) and in our Outsider Art Sourcebook, currently half price!
