Regina Broussard

Donald Mitchell

William Scott

Select any artist above to view their works

How do you become an artist, instead of what you are? How do ideas, experiences and inspirations translate into art? Perhaps art and self are inseparable to an artist, an innate connection of the mind to the eye. As a visual artist, the senses conflate, colors resound, shapes quiver or slumber, and immanence arises from the most inchoate material.

The three artists featured in this exhibit possess mental disabilities. Society, recently enamored with their art, has created numerous definitions in an attempt to categorize their artwork as outsider, self-taught, visionary, art brut. Yet this art bypasses metaphor to offer more direct mediation between the unknown and the human psyche. It compels us towards origin- of art making, of consciousness, of primal human drive and instinct.

Though is it really possible to enter such a state? In our ever advancing and modernizing civilization, we live the triumph of historical consciousness. We know too well that categories such as "outsider", "modern" and "beautiful" are socially constructed and not innate. Their significance represents power and acceptance, bi-products of social conditioning. As a result of our global and politically sensitized society we are prohibited from saying anything universal about what it means to be human, or what it means to make and experience art. For one quickly asks, "Which humans?" "Whose art?"

Yet artists such as Regina Broussard, Donald Mitchell and William Scott have no option. All of their being is present in their work, and that is a great deal because they are extraordinary people. The work is private and thought provoking. Yet it is also accessible, for it puts us in touch with people who elucidate what it is to be human.

Special Thanks
The Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, CA, is dedicated to providing people with disabilities strength, enjoyment and fulfillment through the visual arts. The Center provides a creative environment that promotes the art of people with physical, developmental, and emotional disabilities.

Exhibition sponsored by Thompson Hospitality & Compass Group