L’Art Brut Inspiré
At one point during this residency in Trélex I became quite uninspired by my prim and proper surroundings. The only bit of rebellion that was visible was in the little shelter at the train stop where teenagers had written on the white ceiling with their lighters with things such as A.C.A.B and Fuck the Police. I think every one of these teenagers would be very polite if they were ever approached by a police officer- they all look like clean cut wholesome models for The GAP. But I like being beside their graffitti. I was feeling out of place and all of the fenced off,gated up nice house with nice bits of land taking up all the best places to explore and 99% of the lake were making me feel boxed in.
And then I picked up L’Art Brut collection catalogue and realised where I was. I was in the heart of L’Art Brut- or at least a short train ride away. I read about women such as Aloïse Corbaz who was part of Jean Dubuffet’s initial round up of psychiatric art. I realised that many of these psychiatric hospitals which artists had been put into were dotted all around and not too far. It made me start to think of sweeping problems under the carpet and idealised versions of society and what is left to ‘represent’ normality in the functioning day to day. Story after story of artist who did something human- ie fall in love, get obsessed, pick a fight, be a teenager, be different – and then get incarcerated and ploughed into a system.
I felt lucky that I could create and express without being locked up (yet). I felt a strong connection and sympathy for the artist Aloïse. Things seemed to start to go wrong for her when she fell in love. Her actions and obsession had her deemed crazy. Her work is so much about loving- about the embrace and that falling dizzying happy moment. I decided to take this inspiration and use it to depart from how I would usually make work. I took a big roll of paper into the garden (which is massive) and some chunky pencils and crayons. I drew an embrace inspired by Aloïse- trying to feel and express in the moment and move freely and fast. I felt like I could understand her process.
After finishing the work I took it up to the studio but realised it was too big to hang. So I looked around and tried to think of where there was more space- and then I looked out of the window. It seemed obvious to hang it out of the window- for it to be free. I had drawn a house on the bottom of the picture- like many of her compositions had. I don’t know whether this house was ever symbolic of the institution for her or whether it was part of the dream- but it felt good to hang the work fromt he top of such a big house. I felt it was a tribute. I took the work back in because of the wind and it hung down from the ceiling and spread across the studio floor.
And then we went to L’Art Brut Collection in Lausanne. I felt better as soon as we got off the train as I saw a goth. Being a goth was my first experiment with identity and attraction to something ‘different’. I was blown away by the energy still resonating in that collection. I saw Aloïse’s work and was taken a back- as one piece was hung in exactly the same way as I had left it in the studio. It was uncanny. I didn’t realise that she worked on such a large scale. She achieved this by stitching lots of individual pieces of support together which added something you couldn’t get fromt he reproductions in the book. I felt truly connected and back to fully inspired.
(I was also inspired by Justine Python but will write about her ina nother post).
I recommend a visit to Collection De L’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland.
http://www.artbrut.ch/en/21070/collection-art-brut-lausanne
