Barry Schwabsky at Artforum:
So-called outsider art is commonly valued for its idiosyncratic character and an originality of spirit—and therefore of form—unspoiled by convention. And yet, truth to tell, much of what is presented under this rubric looks remarkably similar. Singular inventors at the level of, say, Helen Rae or Martín Ramírez are as rare in this realm as they are in the domain of academically trained professionals. But to bend familiar tropes and traditionsto recognizably personal ends is also the mark of a genuine artist. To their number we can now add Franne Davids (1950–2022), whose work Ricco/Maresca presented to the public for the first time in a solo booth at the Art Dealers Association of America’sArt Show at New York’s Park Avenue Armory and, immediately afterward, in a full-scale exhibition of six large canvases and fifteen works on paper at the gallery’s Chelsea space.
The paintings (all untitled and made between 1979 and 2018, but not individually dated) featured constellations of women, exotically garbed and sporting elaborate headgear, crowded into densely patterned nonrepresentational environments.
more here.
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