About the Exhibition

Jennifer Lauren Gallery presented new works for the virtual edition of Intersect Chicago 2020 from 6-12 November 2020. The fair was the evolution of SOFA – Sculpture Objects Functional Art. It was the intersection of art, design and objects. SOFA includes daily highlights on Glass, Contemporary Art, Design, Ceramic and Craft, Outsider Art, Fiber and Public Art / Sculpture.

The Jennifer Lauren Gallery showcased: mystical sculptural creatures from Japanese self-taught artists Shinichi Sawada and Akio Kontani; personal clay beings from British artist Terence Wilde; fun and colourful hand-felted 'Makoot' dolls from Japanese artist Makoto Okawa; layered web-like textile structures from British artist Aradne; symbolic cross-stitch and complex monochrome works by British artist Valerie Potter; imaginative pencil drawings from American artist Margaret Mousseau who only started drawing in her sixties; and not forgetting a new artist Joyce Davies from the Shetland Isles, who has created some powerful mono-screenprints.

Writer Edward Gomez has written about his curatorial selections HERE

About the Exhibition

Jennifer returned to the Outsider Art Fair in New York in January 2020. Firm favourites returned alongside new artists ...

• Shinichi Sawada

• Akio Kontani

• Makoto Okawa

• Roy Collinson

• Chris Neate

• Leonhard Fink

• Margaret Mousseau

• Norimitsu Kokubo

• Carlo Keshishian

There is a youtube clip of the fair that can be found here, and if you scroll to 35:45 you will see a short walk around my booth.

About the Exhibition

The Jennifer Lauren Gallery made its debut at the Outsider Art Fair in Paris in October 2019 alongside other galleries such as Cavin-Morris from New York, Creative Growth from California and Galerie Atelier Herenplaats from Amsterdam.

Jennifer took nine artists to the fair: Aradne, Hakunogawa, Akio Kontani, Chris Neate, Valerie Potter, C.J. Pyle, Nobuo Sasaki, Shinichi Sawada and Makoto Toya.

About the Exhibition

The Jennifer Lauren Gallery was delighted to present a rare exhibition of the work of Shinichi Sawada, one of the most recognised art brut artists from Japan, as an official event of the Japan Season of Culture. Sawada was displayed alongside the first British showcase of Akio Kontani and Nobuo Sasaki, two fellow self-taught Japanese ceramicists, little known in this country but sharing a complementary style. All three artists’ ceramics feature bold visionary creatures and demons, alongside more recognisable animals. The exhibition was held as a pop-up at Sway Gallery on Old Street in London.

The exhibition, 日本の陶芸家 三人展, included over twenty-five highly individual works taken directly from the artist’s studios in northern and southern Japan alongside photographs of the artists at work, and the studios where they create. Often placed under the label of outsider art, this exhibition asks the audience to look at these artist’s ceramics as contemporary works, to be judged on their aesthetic quality.

At 37, Shinichi Sawada is one of the most recognised art brut artists from Japan. His work recently featured in New York at Frieze Art Fair and in 2013 he featured in Massimiliano Gioni’s Encyclopedic Palace at the Venice Biennale.

Born in 1970, Akio Kontani started creating art in 2015. Since then, he has been working alongside Shinichi Sawada, three times a week, spending up to five hours each day. His works are often representations of animals and demons from his imagination.

Nobuo Sasaki (b.1956) began living in a social welfare institution in Hokkaido from 1970 due to mental health issues. His ceramic motifs often include animals, such as gorillas, bears, birds, or imaginary demons and friends. This was Sasaki’s first exhibition outside of Japan.

On Wednesday 10 July, Mizue Kobayashi, the Art Director of social welfare organisation Aisekai in Japan, gave a talk about outsider art in Japan, its beginnings and where it is today.

Catch a virtual tour of the exhibition by Edward Enayat here

It was one of the top seven exhibitions to visit in London as suggested here

It was reviewed by CL Gamble on here blog here