Outsider Painting by J.P. DANYS, Ottawa, 2006
Mixed Media Painting on Found Framed Anonymous Artwork, by Outsider (self taught) painter J.P. DANYS, Ottawa, Canada. Titled “Alice, 2006”, Signed & dated in lower front & verso of the painting. Measures 25.5 inches width x 32 inches height. $1000.
*Soon to be featured in a book on Canadian Outsider artists.
JP Danys lives in Ottawa, where he repairs bicycles, paints and sculpts. The world of JP’s paintings & sculptures is urban, fantastic and cautionary. Street scenes are populated with punks, aliens, angels and political figures. Skies are filled with fire and ash, airplanes and flying saucers. Often reclusive, JP hopes to enlighten people with his artwork, and hopefully rid himself of his great shyness.
The term “Outsider Art” has been kicked around, shifted, made into movies and possibly become meaningless since it was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as a kind of English equivalent to the French term, Art Brut. Generally thought of as art operating outside of the artistic fashion of the day, it has variously been interpreted to include (or exclude): art made by children, art made by the insane, art by untrained artists or by artists who don’t live in major cities, art by alien abductees, art by the incarcerated, etc.
Past Group Exhibit Statement: 2010
Being a member of La Petite Mort has been empowering for JP. Unable to function within society in accordance with conventional norms and processes for much of his adult life, JP has struggled for assistance with daily living tasks as essential as finding an apartment to every-day transactional communication skills. The Gallery has provided JP with a place to feel welcome and to express himself freely. In return, JP adds to the Gallery exhibit his unabashedly naive art form in a way that affords dignity to his humanity and to his pain.
What is Outsider Art:
Outsider Art is art by self-taught or naïve art makers. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.
The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (French: [aʁ bʁyt], “raw art” or “rough art”), a label created by French artistJean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by those on the outside of the established art scene, using as examples psychiatric hospital patients and children.
Outsider art has emerged as a successful art marketing category; an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1993, and there are at least two regularly published journals dedicated to the subject. The term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people who are outside the mainstream “art world” or “art gallery system”, regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work. A more specific term, “outsider music“, was later adapted for musicians.