http://elderofziyon.blogspot.ca/2014/06/cleveland-convenience-stor e-features.html

Everything else aside, I like his use of color.

He really captures those butt-rape faces.

His technique and compositional style is heavily reminiscent of A. Wyatt Mann. I wonder if there is any connection?

Seriously. Any issues with the content aside, this is some pretty amazing art. The guy's a real Outsider Artist.

Outsider artist? How do you know he doesn't also paint indoors?

pwned

No, the term "outsider artist" does not refer to an artist who paints exclusively outdoors. Rather, it is used to denote a notable artist who operates "outside" of the established art world - a notoriously cloistered realm of prestigious art schools, galleries, and critics. "Outsider" artists may paint either indoors or outdoors, as they see fit.

As a mural painter, this guy obviously paints outdoors quite often, although I suspect that he practices indoors.

Related point: does anyone else here find the term "outsider artist" distasteful? I'm not criticizing Bobonne for using it, nor am I saying it shouldn't be used elsewhere (if only for lack of better terms). But "outsider art" has got such patronizing undertones, particularly the criticism (even when, or particularly when, the critics in question have a positive opinion of the artist). There's always this element of "Noble Savage" tourism to it all - like the critics are deigning to mix with the natives, marvelling at how cunning the Red Man can be. Why, some of the cleverest natives can almost think and reason like a civilized human being! And then the art critics are like, ooooh, look at us, we're so forward thinking and progressive because WE take the time to be condescending towards the stinking peasantry, not like our rival academic colleagues, who usually just ignore them. Please pay attention to our socially enlightened attitude and put us on an even higher pedestal because of it!

I have issues with the term "underground art" as well, but the problems with "underground art" (particularly: the implied level of hip, edgy pretense; it seems one cannot be an underground artist without aspiring towards coolness) tend to be internal (personal), and therefore less demeaning and disempowering to the artists themselves. "Underground art" is a label artists claim for themselves, "Outsider art" is a label imposed from above.

I mean, can you imagine if we called every musician who did not attend a Viennese conservatory an "outsider musician"?!

The world of traditional visual arts is essentially controlled by hardcore Dream Theater fans.

Outsider Art died with millennials getting old enough to buy and create things, drowned in the postmodern two-things-mixed-equals-new-thing grey goo nanodeath of culture that is now the earth.

I miss outsider artists, I wish they still existed, but they do not.

Your lack of appreciation for Chris Chan is appalling.

I have met people who say that they make outsider art. I decide it's not worth arguing with them.