First published: Fall 2012
Sue Kreitzman is a well known and successful cookery writer who came to art late in life and found to her endless delight that it overpowered her and completely dominated her existence. Her home in Bow in London’s East End stands as testament to that. Crammed with Kreitzman’s colourful assemblages, paintings and collections, the space becomes a flowing mass of colour and form, with the divisions between walls, ceilings, stairs and floors often difficult to grasp.
Originally from New York, Kreitzman has organised several important exhibitions of self-taught artists in London over the last few years, including the celebrated WOW – Wild Old Women and Flashier and Trashier which featured assemblage artists using found materials and kitsch objects as well as highly original paintings and drawings by a variety of mainly British-based visionary artists. Her latest show, ‘Dare to Wear’ will feature bizarre costumes and wearable artworks and will take place at her favourite exhibition venue, the cavernous crypt of St Pancras chuch near Euston in central London. Kreitzman hates pomposity about art, especially art which operates outside of the mainstream. The artists in her exhibitions are an iconoclastic, unconventional, free thinking group, and Kreitzman wants ‘visitors to leave our exhibitions exhilarated, overexcited, laughing out loud, and desperate to begin gathering detritus themselves in order to make their own art. I would hope that each and every one of them realise that anyone can make art out of anything!’
Kreitzman has collected together a whole stable of British-based self-taught artists who show alongside her at the regular exhibitions. For many it is the main exposure they will get during the year and the exhibitions are gradually establishing themselves as important elements in London’s specialist outsider art world. The forthcoming Dare to Wear show will feature 27 self-taught artists who will be exploring profound wardrobe conundrums such as ‘Will flamboyance set you free?’, ‘How many kilos of weird jewelery are correct to wear on any given day?’ and ‘Will wearing beige really kill you?’
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #76
