The Outsiders Project 2020
“Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses—where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere—are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professions. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade.”
—Jean Dubuffet, on Outsider Art
Artists Without Resumes
Four of the Gallery’s artists suffer from debilitating mental illness. They do not have resumes, but have offered biographical details. Given the character and goals of La Petite Mort Gallery, their resume status is not believed to detract from their artistic merit, but, rather, to illustrate its integrity.
JP Danys:
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.
Anne Johnson:
Anne’s paintings and mixed media artwork has helped La Petite Mort develop its community social awareness ethic by, as quoted from The Ottawa Citizen, “helping to promote tolerance and acceptance” of the socially marginalized. Anne has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia nearly all her life, and she has been plagued with psychosis, insanity, and homelessness from 18 years of age to her 50s. Anne’s self-awareness and artistic acuity has helped her transform her suffering into peace and to express it for all the world.
“Crazzy” Dave Dessler:
Crazzy Dave has been the subject of significant media attention in 2008, during which time he has come to be celebrated as the “iconic street poet” of the Ottawa homeless community, known to be found in the Byward Market. Too proud to accept charity, Dave transforms his experiences on the street into observations in the noumenal space between the city’s privileged working classes and the “invisible” homeless. His poetry offers a reflection of the intelligent and aware existence of a homeless man who considers himself a successful busker rather than a pan-handler, charging a $2 creativity fee in addition to the amount per the buyer’s perceived value of every poem he sells. Dave has been writing prolifically since 2006 and has recently been published in a collaborative volume with photographer Jean Boulay.
Jean-Guy Carisse:
Works displayed at La Petite Mort include “Drawings of Transvestites, Freaks, and Confused Individuals,” August 22, 2007.
Artist Statement: QUEENS
” We dream of it… Glitz, Glamour, Good Times.
We strive for it… pleasure, prominence, even power.
And we ornament ourselves to play the part, look the part and be the part.
… But alas, the sands of time and the ravages of life’s cycle often puts our dreary pleasure garden through the wringer, often when we are unaware…
… And before you know it, we wind up in a desolate chamber with only our adornments that still can be physically worn but whose role in wearing them is less a requirement but more a reminder of what is, is actually what was.” Jean-Guy, 2008