Ben Wilson.

I Love Beech and Oak Woods 1997-99
Carved and painted wood  23 x 18 x 7.5 inches.

Chewing gum painting. Muswell Hill.

Ben Wilson was born in Cambridge and raised in Barnet, Hertfordshire by artistic, supportive parents who encouraged his urge to create. He embarked on a foundation course but realised that he did not like formal art training and retreated to the college grounds, where he spent most of his time making works from found wood, an activity he had begun as a child. In the woods adjoining the college, he created his first major piece  a massive human figure and chair  and went on to create a large number of arbours and figurative sculptures from fallen trees in the woods of North London. His complex carved creations range from Adam- and Eve-style figures to sprawling environmental creations. Wilson works spontaneously, tapping into the spirit of a place to produce pieces that are in keeping with their surroundings. Working primarily with found materials which he incorporates into collages or sculptural works, he seeks to highlight the problems of waste, pollution and erosion of the natural world. Since October 2004 he has been working full time making paintings on old chewing gum, brightening London pavements with his miniature masterpieces.

Perifimou.

Psyche, 1988. gouache on paper.

Perifimou  (Alexander Georgiou) was born in 1916, in Cyprus. His family suffered a great deal of poverty and eventually he immigrated to Great Britain in 1935. He worked as a tailor and as a cook, before serving in World War II.

In the 70's he became a guard at the Royal Academy, and later at the Tate. It was during this time that he began to make his fist drawings. These were  noticed by Victor Musgrave, an art dealer, curator and champion of Art Brut and Outsider Art who brought Perfimou to the attention of the art world.
Perifimou’s mysterious paintings relate strange undulating narratives in bold, colorful figures and soft forms. Weird quasi-mystical creatures interrelate with awkward looking figures. Perifimou died in 2001.

Scottie Wilson. 

Untitled (Greedies) c. 1940. Mixed media on paper (courtesy England & Co.)

Scottie Wilson was born in Glasgow in 1891 and is remembered as one of the most important Outsider artists, certainly the most successful, numbering both Picasso and Dubuffet amongst his clients. After serving in the trenches in WWI he moved to Canada where, by now in his forties, he began to make his fastidiously detailed drawings. After exhibiting with some success in Toronto, Wilson returned to London where his career flourished with the interest in Art Brut in France. His characters and symbolism represents a broadly naturalistic sense of morality and good against evil. He died in 1972.

A 'Palmer White' "revenant" found in West Cornwall 20th June 1987.

Untitled. c. 1971. Ink on paper. 14 x 20cm

Very little is known about the true identity of the British Outsider artist known as 'Palmer White' except that he has spent most of his life in Cornwall. A few drawings, photographs and paintings exist, mostly in private collections. Since the 1970's White has been involved in leaving pieces of his art in the Cornish landscape for people to come across and try to fill with their own meanings. A one-time resident of the Bodmin Asylum, White's work is notable for his early interest in Land Art and environmental issues and some of these concerns are reflected in his left art pieces or what he called 'revenants'. 'Palmer White' (his pseudonym comes from a scratched signature) has always been a deeply secretive artist and, like the Philadelphia Wireman, we know very little about him. He is thought to be still alive and living in Cornwall and works of his are still occasionally to be found in that area.

Madge Gill.

Untitled. Ink. 37.5 x 45cm

Madge Gill was born in the outskirts of London in 1882. She had a very difficult childhood and was eventually placed in an orphanage. She spent the greater part of her childhood in Canada working on a farm and eventually returned to England where she married a stockbroker. They had three sons together and one of them died during the Spanish Flu epidemic. A year after that Gill gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. Both these experiences effected he profoundly and via an earlier interest in Spiritualism, Gill began to make mediumistic drawings many of which were said to represent her lost daughter. She was guided in these drawings by a spirit she called 'Myrninerest'. Many hundreds of drawings were found after her death and are now in the possession of the London Borough of Newham which, scandalously, has no plans to display them.

Madge Gill. Untitled. Watercolour on Paper. 19.5x25inches