5 Things That Make Art 'Art Brut'

“Art Brut” isn’t a new paradigm of art pedagogy regardless of the fact that some audience never experienced a sincere invention of aesthetics created by artists outside art school. Marking its inception in 1945 by Jean Dubuffet, Art Brut serves as a particular genre of creativity, exposing hidden dialogue and demonstration of arts in a naïve, raw, free, and unexplainable and ruleless form. 

Art Brut is interesting, because this art is done by a person or a group of socially and culturally isolated people such as people with disabilities, prisoners, non-art training artists, and senior citizens, etc. These outsider artists employ creativity and express it for personal purposes.

This section presents works on the topic of "Rawness“, an Art Brut characteristic, which highlights the freshness and the expressions which seem to spring out from the inside. For example the untitled artwork from Yoshihiko ITO, Shinichi SAWADA and Pasin Singhsaneh.

The thorns are lined up and seem to keep away from each other while the forms of the body are round and are peculiarly asymmetrical. The works have a mysterious air of aggression and affinity, balance and imbalance. 

Besides rawness, repetition is also important characteristic of this section. For this artwork, Noriko created colorful geometric patterns of dots on a bubble wrap roll for 6 years, It looks as if it was carefully calculated and then drawn, but Noriko applied the colors one by one from the edges guided only by her intention, and this repetition culminated in this large abstract painting.

The patterns are reminiscent of marbling or a topographical map, and it is hard to tell what shapes they imitate. Those who have seen the works by Kanasaki will be overwhelmed by their power and puzzled by their in excitability. Kanasaki applies wood glue in many layers over advertising leaflets and pages of magazines ,and finishes the works by sanding their surface. The hours used to repeatedly glue and sand the paper are stored within these works. 

The other artworks which created by paper are vehicle models from Thiti. He is interested in the aesthetic beauty of public vehicles such as transit buses, cargo trucks, tour buses, taxis, or customized personal cars. His happiness is learning the intricacies of vehicle components and creating the vehicle models by a single sheet of paper and adhesive tape. 

Artist produces his figurines from aluminum strips that contain metal wires. His works are becoming increasingly diverse from year to year, and they have attained a new level of realness. He started this practice because he wanted something to carry around him, so he keeps his favorite figurines by his side, and the ones that are allowed to be displayed are those to which he is least attracted.

Last artwork in this section made from the tape. Umeki has liked the alphabet from young age. He began wrapping cut-out pieces of paper with tape to laminate them and has been producing works containing pebbles he picked up about 10 years ago which serve as the core. Lately, he has been using himself as the core by wrapping himself with tape, and using the unwrapped tape, he has created a work of about 1 meter in length.

The section presents the authors’ thoughts and wishes which were at the source of creation. For example, paintings of a famous unique creator 'Supalerk Sangsai'.

Supalerk created his artworks from passion and desire, as two Thai creators 'Catleeya Asavanant' and 'Madee Boonchuen'. For Catleeya, although she studied at art studies institute, her artistic works are not representative of institutional art. Her presentations feature adventures in imagination, beloved people and pets, beliefs, and a variety of emotional conditions, and a departure from guidelines and specifications that illustrates her artistic freedom. Most of her works rely on straightforward expression rather than ornamentation and embellishments suggested by artistic study or art fundamentals.

This artwork created by the impression in hand bells sound. Megumu Cho draws on empty boxes. He is a Christian and he like to draw angels. The hand bells in their hands appeared after he heard a hand bell performance and was deeply moved. Cho continues to draw plump angels in various poses.

First of all, we are not sure that these are artworks? Because these seem a documentary of the girl 'Hanako IMAMURA'. The everyday life of Imamura is full of expressions. As she eats, she chewed her food slowly and left it in different places. It is an act which one is normally scolded for, but her mother, who felt an attachment to these unique arrangements, has been recording them for over 20 years. The oil paintings from about 30 years ago were made following a fixed process and are closely linked to the physical senses. Imamura's unique sense of color also showed on the paper palettes she uses for oil paintings which her mother secretly collects.

The last section shows collaborative works of contemporary artists and Art Brut artists who attempted new creations. The most interesting collaborative work of this exhibition belongs to Hideyuki Igarashi and Masanori Kurachi

"...they are like raw fruit, with special vitamins which nourish and enrich us. I think these nutritional supplements exist only in raw art, uncontaminated by culture.” Dubuffet expresses the characteristics of the works this way.