Georgia O Keefe Art Analysis

The list of artists afflicted with a mental illness is staggering and spans all areas of art. Even some of the more mainstream painters such as Georgia O’Keefe were formally institutionalized at some point in their careers. Their artwork contains an element of strangeness that makes viewers slightly uncomfortable because it of its unusual appearance, which is what makes this type of artwork attractive. Semir Zeki points out in his article on art as it relates to the brain that people are naturally more attracted to abnormalness, making artwork that contradicts traditional style art popular. He also explains how neurologist Dr. Ramachandran found that “there are certain artistic images, such as the face, that when exaggerated and distorted are

Steinhauer explains that the art movement of the imagists began with Yoshida, who counseled his students into drawing inspiration from abnormal aspects of their environment that they would normally overlook. He encouraged them to visit flea markets and to collect pieces of folk art or any other unusual work that caught their eye. Yoshida believed that this odd artwork “possessed a refreshing originality that [he] found instructive”, and is what he used for inspiration in his own artwork

By their artwork becoming more widely accepted, it allowed the art of the mentally ill artists who had been the true inspiration behind their work to come to light and be recognized as well, even though many of them had died by this point. The imagists would travel around and exhibit their work alongside all of the work which they had collected from now famous artists such as Henry Darger. In her book, Art Brut: The Origins of Outsider Art, Lucienne Peiry explains it was in the 1990s that this style of artwork was able to be adopted by the art community, a time in American culture was focusing on multiculturalism and the rising popularity of alternative media, which is where this artwork fell into place (Peiry 63). Other 90s movements such as grunge, the rave scene, and hip hop, proved that the culture was changing and was becoming more accepting of all varieties of