For my Extended Project, I started to look specifically at Outsider
Art (simply, art produced by untrained artists) and transgressed into the
benefits of self-expression. After trawling through blogs, journals and art
critiques I started to wonder whether or not self-expression through art was
limited to trained artists.
I wanted to curate an exhibition of art from untrained
artists to query this. To discuss how beneficial creativity is in terms of self
expression, I wanted to interview each person to measure how each person felt
before and after drawing. With the untrained view on art as my focus for my
EPQ, discussion was key in both my exhibition and catalogue.
I approached LoddonSocial Enterprise and asked several service users to draw me a picture based on
a prompt. I gave each person a selection of prompts so that their style could
emerge. The prompts I used were “Patterns” “Home” “Friends” “Animals” and “Your
Favourite thing”.
Though I wanted to interview each participant about the
process to measure the psychological benefits of self expression, I soon
realised that anonymity would strengthen the case for Outsider Art and the
untrained view. Rather than focusing on any one piece, the viewer would have to
regard all of the work as a whole, hopefully resulting in contemplation. Though
I didn’t go through with the full interviews, I did ask for a sentence
explaining the choice of prompts and what they had created as a response. - Heather Gibson, January 2015.
A selection from the exhibition:
Patterns:
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| "It's what came to mind" |
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| "She did patterns because she enjoys doing them" |
Home:
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| "This is my house" |
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| "It's my choice to draw my house" |
Friends:
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| "I enjoy watching and playing football with my friends" |
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| "It's a picture of my friend Santa" |
Animals:
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| "I love animals" |
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| "It's my dog" |
Your Favourite Thing:
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| "PS4 just came into my head and it was easy to draw" |
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| "I drew him because I enjoy all the films. I enjoy drawing heroes" |
