Category: Art
At the 2013 London Art Fair I discovered the intriguing work of American folk artist Butch Anthony, who started making art when his friend John Henry Toney ploughed up a turnip that looked like it had a face in it. Butch suggested that John Toney make a picture of it which he then took to a local junk shop and sold for $50. As Butch tells it ‘I thought hell, if he can do it I’ll make one too. I made a picture, stuck it in the junk store, put $50 on it. Next day someone came along and bought it. I’ve been painting ever since.’
King.
Chiuhuahua.
The Alabama sculptor, inventor, designer and folk artist Butch Anthony just so happens to be putting on his first ever UK show with Black Rat Projects in London Soho this month. Intertwangelism sees Butch add his home-honed artistic skills to found paintings and photographs, which sit somewhere between a ‘yesteryear’ nostalgia and a celebration of modern day pop-art, and yet probably pay little regard to either.
Swoonia Londonii.
Enigma.
The self-titled ‘artist, builder and picker of things’, and creator of the annual ‘Doo Nanny’ festival, has been hailed a ‘national treasure’ stateside with his indefinable – yet in-demand – artworks. His humorous, clever and strangely beautiful paintings coupled with his unique brand of ramshackle genius have gained him a cult following in the US.
Butch explains: ‘Intertwangleism is how I look at people and break them down to their primordial beginnings. Almost like x-ray vision, seeing through a persons clothes, through their skin, and muscles and veins and bones even their shadow. These first skeletonized paintings are just the first phase of my Theory to take over the art world as we know it'. Candice Tripp, artist, commented: 'I keep trying to articulate just how much I adore Butch Anthony’s work, but I can’t explain it any better than by saying how jealous I am. I love it, so much so that I wish it was my own.' Intertwangleism’s art-works are at once humorous, morbid, childlike and yet strangely sobering, Butch constantly questions the boundaries of art, existence, time and respectability- all whilst wearing Liberty dungarees. Never has ‘mixed-media’ been so mixed.
A private view for the show will be held on Thursday 7th February, 6-9pm. Butch Anthony will be in attendance. Opening hours: Monday to Friday 11am – 6pm & Saturday 12 – 5pm.