Outsider Art Fair: Jan. 9-11

(Above) Two works by Dan Miller (b. 1961)
(Above) Two works by Donald Mitchell (b. 1961)

(Above) Two works by Dwight Mackintosh (1906-1999)

THIS WEEK and next, I will be showcasing a number of galleries that will be represented at the Sanford L. Smith’s 17th Annual Outsider Art Fair, being held at it’s new location this year at 7 West 34th Street (at 5th Avenue).

CREATIVE GROWTH Art Center
355 24th Street, Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: 510.836.2340

Creative Growth is a 35-year old, non-profit organization that nurtures artists with disabilities, ensuring that each artist receives professional grade art materials, exceptional instruction and premium exhibition and promotion opportunities.

About the artists:

Dan Miller's artwork uses letters and words repeatedly overdrawn, often creating ink layered masses, hovering on the page and built up to the point of obliteration or destruction of the ground. Each work contains the artist's obsession with objects like light bulbs, electrical sockets, food and the names of cities and people. Recently his work was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and is in their permanent collection.

Donald Mitchell’s early work consisted primarily of obsessively cross-hatched fields of lines that covered the page and hid any trace of an underlying image. Several years ago, Donald started to reveal the faces and forms that he had buried on the page. Mitchell’s prolific work is now filled with tightly composed, graphically sophisticated page of crowded figures. His work is in major international collections.

Dwight Mackintosh began making artwork late in life and after spending 55 years in institutions. His work is characterized by repetitive flowing text and “x-ray” views of loosely drawn, tightly composed male figures. His work also includes trains, buses, angels and idiosyncratic documentation illustrating “before and after” views of tonsillectomy surgery. His work is in major international collections, including ABCD in Paris.