ART
IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE A MORE unlikely collection of artistic trendsetters. Most of them work in isolation in remote rural areas. Many seem eccentric, if not psychologically disturbed. They have no formal art training; some even deny that what they are doing is art. Yet critics and collectors are hailing the passionate, original work of these "outsider artists" as one of the most significant recent developments in the world of art.
These artists share one crucial characteristic: a profound urge to create. Consider Benjamin Perkins. The Alabama lay preacher's first opus, fashioned with leftover house paint and a slab of wood, so pleased him he promptly began his next work--right on top of the first. For 17 years he created painting after painting, all on the same piece of wood.
"It didn't dawn on him to show it to anyone else, or to keep it," says art dealer Marion Harris. "His need was to do it."
Outsider art is not only very "in" in the art world, it's very much an inside job. Artist Kenny McKay, 53, spent two decades hospitalized for mental illness and has received mental health treatment for his entire adult life. But this isolation--not only from the commercial art world but from popular culture--helps maintain the unique vision of outsider artists like McKay.
