Friday, February 5, 2010

The Outsider Art of Anthony Beasley


...IMAGINE IF SHAFT MET WITH FREDERICK DOUGLAS WHO BOTH SAT DOWN FOR DRINKS WITH JAMES CAMERON TO DISCUSS PAN-AFRICAN HISTORY WHILE JOHN JAMES AUDUBON WAS DRUNK IN THE BOOTH NEXT TO THEM EAVESDROPPING AND SHOUTING OVER THE CONVERSATION THE ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL...NEO-POINTILLIST MIXED MEDIA...
(More below images about Anthony )
All works by Anthony are mixed media on found cardboard or on illustration board. They vary in size and ranging 21" to 48" max in any dimension.



...a detail form one of Anthony's works showing his neo-pointillist technique



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 


 
 

 

 

 

 

 

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ANTHONY BEASLEY
I met Anthony one day when he came into my store asking to put up some artwork. After reviewing one piece I recommended several other art hot spots in Detroit where he might have drudged up better opportunities. I thought that was the last of it until about a month later when he showed up again with a box full of work. I was blown away, accepted the works and brought them home that evening to my wife Tracy. She was blown away. We studied the works deep into the night and began to understand the power and beauty of Anthony's works. He is a storyteller of the best kind. Even though he is uneducated in the traditional sense, Anthony Beasley is not without great artistic intelligence or articulation. His work speaks in a language all together his own. I view it as a form of neo-pointalism mixed with his urban experience. In his imagery there exists a strong connection of both traditional and non-traditional Black American history as is verbally passed down and experienced by one such as Anthony Beasley. Where the photos do not do this statement justice, to be able to see this work up close creates an experience of pleasure derived through visceral, evocative emotion. Therein exists a duplicitous struggle between the joy of his creations and the emotional experiences represented in his works. Each image boasts of high stylization and life emanating from the work. Anthony spent his career working for Chrysler where he would find pieces of used cardboard to create his works in his spare time. They are created utilizing multiple media from pencils, pen and ink to paint. Furthermore, as a gestural as well as textural intimation Anthony pierces the image thousands of times with a stenciling device creating patterns of light, shade and pointillist detail...a technique unseen in art today.