Back in 2009 an inspiring exhibition opened in Primrose Hill. Billed as the “first museum dedicated to untrained, unintentional and unseen creators of our modern world” the Museum of Everything, situated in a former dairy factory, was a celebration of hitherto ignored masterpieces of Outsider Art.
A little like folk art, Outsider is naive. The artists are mostly untrained, and often unrecognised in their lifetimes, with many suffering from mental illness. Stories – of their lives and those they create in their work – are central to its appeal (an approach, incidentally, we also apply in our own celebration of the area’s artists, both online and in each monthly print edition).
This weekend, the Museum of Everything’s main curator, Liana Braune, is putting on an exhibition of 12 local artists to raise money for Holy Trinity Saint Silas, the world-class church on Hartland Road.
Back in 1850 its design (by the architects Thomas Henry Wyatt and David Brandon) was so impressive that it was exhibited in the Royal Academy; the church was then built in Kentish ragstone in a 14th century style with a west tower and spire, later destroyed during World War II. Now, in 2013, it’s the sole example in London by Wyatt and Brandon.
“Last year we raised close to £1000 to rebuild the Victorian railings,” says Braune, who is mother to one of the children in the affiliated school opposite the church, “and now the time has come to raise fund for the reconstruction of the Church’s Tower built in 1850.”
So what can we buy at the weekend “pop-up” to support the restoration? As well as “a wonderful variety of artworks this year”, there will also be the appealingly monikered Postcards of Art section – created by a random assortment of folk from congregation members to friends. The price? Just a fiver.
Sounds perfectly “outsider” to us. And it all goes to help an iconic local building – whether you’re religious or not.
