Sharon Kerry Harlan
Faces of a Fractured Nation, 2025
acrylic paint and silk screens on rusted fabric, incorporating found objects, mounted on a black canvas-wrapped wood frame
20 x 16 in
Although the roots of Outsider Art can be traced back thousands of years, it is most useful to look back to its most recent precursor, art brut (Raw Art) to hear the most vital articulations of its true spirit. In his 1947 manifesto, French artist and curator Jean Dubuffet described the term art brut as follows: "We understand by this term works produced by persons unscathed by artistic culture, where mimicry plays little or no part (contrary to the activities of intellectuals). These artists derive everything...from their own depths, and not from the conventions of classical or fashionable art."
