Raw Arts Festivals
RAF2007 -
Carrozzini von Buhler Gallery
- New York
January 2007
Billed as "New York's first
festival to be led (by) and run for raw artists", RAF2007 repeated the
2006 experiment of holding the Raw Arts Festival outside the UK when
it visited the 'Big Apple'.
Timed to coincide with New
York's annual Outsider Art Fair it ran from 17-31 January 2007 at the
Carrozzini von Buhler Gallery, situated between Greenwich Village and
Chelsea in New York's
'meat packing district' - today
one of the city's trendiest areas.
26 artists from 9 countries
participated; as might be expected US
artists predominated and again I was the sole Australian.
RAF2006 -
Galeria Color Elefante
- Valencia - October 2006
For the first time Piers Midwinter
ventured outside the UK to hold the 2006
Raw Arts Festival in Valencia
(Spain). NY Arts Magazine
co-sponsored the event that took place from 4-27 October 2006 at the
Galeria Color Elefante.
The festival attracted 25 artists
from the UK, USA, Italy, Spain and six other countries including out
of the way places like the Republic of Georgia, Haiti and the Grand Caymans.
I was the only Australian representative.
RAF2005 -
Candid Arts Trust Gallery-
London - May 2005
Following contacts with Piers
Midwinter of the Raw Art web site in late 2004, I was one of the participants
in RAF2005 in London in May 2005.
August 2004 had seen the birth
of a brand new 'Raw Art Festival' entitled RAF2004. The brainchild of
Piers Midwinter, it included works in a variety of ‘outsider’ art
genres - intuitive, marginalised, self-taught, visionary art etc. It
attracted contributions from some 60 artists drawn from many countries
and was acclaimed a huge success by critics and participants alike.
RAF 2005 involved
some 90 artists from at least 12 different countries many of whom were
physically present at the festival. Like myself, a majority
of the artists exhibiting at the festival were self-taught; others had
had some form of art training, but all were artists who had found their
own style and were interested in pursuing their own artistic vision,
regardless of fashionable trends.
The festival proved that people of
widely diverse backgrounds and cultures can come together
to celebrate their common humanity through their art.
Although I was disappointed
not to have been present in person, I was proud to have been part of
that celebration. Links to my own contribution and to the works by other
artists can be found below.
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