Today we meet a group of artists and explore how art has enriched their lives.
The art world – high culture, big prices and even bigger words.
What about artists with disabilities, what is the value of art for them?
Kamini Nair is 56, she doesn’t say much and has an intellectual disability. She’s
a full time painter and her work has been exhibited alongside prominent kiwi artists.
Danny Miller, he’s 49 and lives in San Francisco, he has severe epilepsy and an intellectual
disability. Two of his works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in
New York.
Meet William, he’s 45 has autism and lives with him mum in San Francisco. His paintings
sells for thousands and his images have been used in fashion creations by designer Mark
Jacobs.
Andrew Blythe lives with paranoid schizophrenia, he’s spent most of his life in psychiatric
hospitals or on the street. His exhibitions are sellouts and his work’s now caught the
eye of international collectors.
All of these artists work full time at their craft – surely it’s about more than throwing
a bit of paint around the keeping people’s days filled. We want to find out what value
art brings to the lives of people living with a disability.
San Francisco boasts the world’s largest space for artists with disabilities. Creative
Growth was the first studio of its kind opening its doors over 40 years ago. Back then many-judged
art as merely therapy or a way to fill time. Here the artists are recognized for their
pure talent.
I think we probably all have some experience of being around people with disabilities in
the greater world, we see them on the bus, we see them maybe walking down the street
and we have a concept in our own minds about who they are or where they fit into society
or whether they do or not – I think we all have our pre-conceived notions and that doesn’t
exist here at Creative Growth.
Sit up/take note – this is Dan Miller and this huge work is in paint and pen. He has
an intellectual disability and wears a helmet to protect his head when he has seizures.
Dan likes words; his favourite is making it into his art.
He’s been coming here to Creative Growth every day for the past 10 years.
For as long as he’s been here he’s made the same kind of artwork which is taking words
that are in his mind and his language that he repeats and putting them on the page – again
he’s telling a story and over time that story has created beautiful composition on
a page.
Dan too has been completely infiltrated into the insider art world, his work hangs at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, he too has had exhibitions at White Columns and internationally
that have sold out and given him a lot of …. People come to visit him and I would
say that he really has had a shift of being a kind of quiet, shy person to learning how
to be social so art has been the sort of touchstone for him in that way where he’s really come
out of his shell.
Daniel Miller’s work sells for between $2,000 and $2,500 and again the money that goes in
to his pocket has provided comfort for him and his living situation.
That’s $4,000 NZ dollars. The art world recognizes his genious – the disability
is irrelevant.
In the beginning the biography was very important, you know this is a person with a disability
wow I can’t believe they can do this and over time the public has been really able
to look at the art and understand what the artists are doing and look at the value of
the pieces been made and not only that it’s been made by a person with a disability but
the contribution that it’s making to the larger contemporary art world.
These artists need support and the world wouldn’t be aware of their talents if it wasn’t for
Creative Growth. The sad truth is people with disabilities have limited access to the arts.
These artists don’t have a qualification from an art school so they’re called “outsider
artists”. In New York Suzanne Brown organizes her world into boxes.
I particularly like these ones.
The simplicity of her work is refreshing.
Who are these people?
My mother over here and my sister Claudia, me, my sister Connie who is the youngest and
my sister Barbara.
What I enjoy about work by self-taught artists is the intuitive quality, often there’s
an obsessiveness and I was thinking when I was walking around here I wonder why that
is a quality of work by self taught artists. Often perhaps there’s an ability to focus
that other artists don’t have, there’s too many voices in the world and critical
voices, maybe art theory gets in the way, art school there’s exams, timetables, maybe
there’s an ability of self taught artists to listen to their intuition more fully without
a filter.
With an exhibition comes visibility – the art and the artist are exposed to a lot more
people. I’ve been told about an artist whose huge impressionistic canvases have been snapped
up by an international collector.
At 56 Kamini Nair’s talents have finally been discovered.
I think the work is exuberant and I think her infatuation with certain colours comes
across, I love the fact she’s titled the show “yellow, pink, red, orange”, it’s
almost irrepressible and it’s consistent – the work is strong. She’s having a
good time painting too, you can tell, it’s nice to capture the pleasure of paint.
Normally shy, showing her work to the world is giving Kamini confidence, she’s engaging
with the community.
I think it’s meant an awful lot to Kamini, she’s empowered as an artist seeing her
work up on display in this community space, she’s got a huge sense of pride around that
and it was kind of portrayed on the opening night with the amount of people she was showing
around and confidently talking about her work.
This is Kamini’s show “Yellow, Pink, Red, Orange”. Her massive impressionistic paintings
are part of an exhibition with recognized Kiwi artists. Kamini’s family had expected
she’d probably never had a special interest in life but four years ago Kamini began painting
at SANDZ Studio, a creative space for people with disabilities. Kamini’s artistic ability
astounded her 85-year-old mum.
Well two or three years back she started coming up with art work and I went to see the painting
and was quite surprised, I could not believe that my daughter had done that huge painting
and it was really a big thing for us and the family.