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For the lazy the term “Art of the Insane” sums it up in a neat and simple package, and this package is then left dormant in the mind. Beware the sleeping giant, this art form is out to get you!

It will invade your ideas and beliefs, twist your notions of madness and probably inspire you to put pen to paper or brush to canvass.

By calling these artists insane you belittle their creations and their humanity. They might have diseases and conditions that can be clinically defined by psychiatrists but their paintings speak beyond these boundaries.

Until I met Henry Boxer I had never* heard of Outsider Art, the term better applied to artists who had developed their skills independently of tutors, teachers and “the acceptable way of doing things”.

A good example is Edmund Monsiel, an untreated schizophrenic, who produced a body of exquisitely detailed drawings, often with messianic and religious inscriptions, on scraps of paper. These were only discovered after his death.

The Henry Boxer Gallery has exhibits at the New York Outsider Art Fair every January and the 20/21 Century British Art Fair every September. He is also a director of the magazine Raw Vision. I visited his private gallery, mid-August, 2005 and we talked about Outsider Art and other parts of his collection.

*On reflection I have seen an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer is ‘discovered’ as an Outsider Artist.

More info: www.outsiderart.co.uk