Outliers and American Vanguard Art in Los Angeles

Horace Pippin

until March 18, 2019

"Outliers and American Vanguard Art" focuses on three periods over the last century when the intersection of self-taught artists with the mainstream has been at its most fertile. Bringing together some 250 works in a range of media, the exhibition includes more than 80 schooled and unschooled artists and argues for a more diverse and inclusive representation in cultural institutions and cultural history.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036
www.lacma.org

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Issue 99 Out Now!

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THE MYSTIC IMAGINATION

Helen Martins created her own version of Paradise and the Holy Land in the isolated, desert region of Karoo, South Africa

Author: Anne Graaff
Photos by Samantha Rheinders unless stated

Helen Martins was born in 1897 in the small Karoo village of Nieu-Bethesda in South Africa, nestled in a valley on a high plateau. Agricultural crops and animals grazing in fields intersperse the village homes. The Karoo is an arid region, but the valley has water. This changes everything. The life-bringing water wells up from a natural spring in the hills and is channelled in furrows to fields and homes. The village is a little oasis of lush and verdant growth. Trees can grow to truly impressive heights – something about the soil, the light and the water.

In Martins’ densely populated Camel Yard, birds, camels, human figures and miniature dwellings jostle for space. In the sculptured tableau in the foreground, a figure, symbol of the sign of Aquarius, pours water from a jug while at her feet are two owls, her protectors

This is a version of Paradisem and the place has a biblical feel: sheep graze in the fields, donkeys are employed for transport, there are unpolluted night skies, and the sunlight has a clarity and sparkle that is unusual in today’s world. The clock seems to have stopped in Nieu-Bethesda and the village is not so very different to when Martins was born. 

A conference of the birds, peacock, heron and owl, perch together atop one corner of Martins’ Gates of Paradise

Martins spent her childhood in Nieu-Bethesda. She went on to enrol in teacher training at the college in the nearest town, Graaff Reinett. She married a fellow teacher and they moved together to Volksrust, in the Mpumalanga region where both of them took jobs in the local school. 

An owl is perched on a bench in one of the garden shrines constructed from rows of bottles. The symbol of intoxication, both actual and spiritual, is deliberate. Martins called these structures her Meccas. They are spaces for prayer, meditation and contemplation; her holy places

In his spare time, her husband wrote and directed plays and had an active interest in amateur dramatics. Martins was pulled into this world, performing in a number of his plays. The marriage did not last longer than three years, but Martins’ interest in the stage continued. For a brief period she joined a theatre company, touring and performing with them. It is therefore unsurprising that when, back in Nieu-Bethesda, she started to create her Owl House and Camel Yard, she employed all the skills of stage and theatre to bring to life her created world. 

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