ART'S OUTSIDERS TAKE CENTRE STAGE
Samantha Salvat has exhibited in Mexico, Italy and Spain. But, as part of the Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival ( VOAF), she'll be joining a group that includes some artists who have never before shown their work in public.
“I've been raising two kids and I've been continuing with my practice, but I've been in my own private space,” said the 49-year-old artist. Originally from Mexico City, Salvat moved to Vancouver at age 15 and went to school at Emily Carr and Capilano. She moved back to Mexico, but currently lives on the North Shore.
“I've been trying to do group shows here and there, but for the last five years I've been a little absent. I thought the festival could put me in touch with the arts community.”
Now in its fourth year, the festival welcomes people who work outside of traditional creative streams. The festival showcases not just visual art, but also writing, theatre, dance and storytelling. Performers include singer Dalannah Gail Bowen, storyteller Jim Sands and dance company Polymer Dance. This year's VOAF is online, although a group show is on now at Lost & Found Cafe (33 W. Hastings St.) until Jan. 9.
The term “outsider art” originally meant work by people who had been institutionalized, but festival organizers at the Community Arts Council of Vancouver use a looser definition.
“We work with self-identified outsider artists,” said Eric Rhys Miller, executive director of the council. “They might have training or they might be self-taught, but these are folks with an ongoing practice who are facing some sort of exclusion or barrier that keeps them out of the exhibition world and have challenges in sharing their work.”
These challenges might include mental health, addiction issues, newcomer status or poverty.
“There are a lot of reasons an artist might self-identify as an outsider,” he said.
Miller says that the work represents “a really wide range of esthetics. We're not a curated festival. At Community Arts Council, our mission is to provide opportunities for people to make art and support artists, and to give wide access to art.”
A common theme in the work is “the exclusion of the artist themselves,” he said.
“You're going to see a wide range of work.”
Salvat's paintings are colourful and abstract. In her artist's statement, she writes: “My current work is about naturally occurring patterns, land art, sacred geometry and nature-inspired abstract spaces.
“Painting has given me a language to express themes of being together, to connect to the community, to other people,” she said. “Art is a language in which I can express who I am.”
In preparation for the festival, the council held an eight-week virtual workshop for participating artists to help them create a video profile. Even for an experienced artist like Salvat, this was a welcome opportunity.
“They (arts council) helped put me onscreen. I'd never really done anything like that. It's not my comfort zone.”
On a group Zoom call, the artists were called upon to make three presentations of their work.
“It was quite frightening at the beginning. But it was a very warm atmosphere,” she said.
In the end, Salvat got her wish — she has been reintroduced to a community of artists.
“We're all so different from each other but at the same time that reminded me of why I loved art school in the first place. It was somewhere you could connect with people who were so different and so unique,” Salvat said.
“It's a melting pot of different personalities and different points of view.”