Outsider art: what students can learn from self-taught artists
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Loading... - Alice Winston
- 09 Mar 2021
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In 1939, former slave Bill Traylor was sitting on a box at the side of the road drawing when the artist Charles Shannon rode by on his horse. Touched by the pictures, Shannon supported Traylor and helped him exhibit his work. After his death, Traylor would become a significant figure of American folk and modern art – without a formal artistic education.
The study of art is becoming less common in the UK. Fewer than 19% of fine art graduates go on to work in an art or design-related field, and the number of students studying creative art degrees dropped by 17,000 between 2016 and 2017. Fine art is still a popular degree choice, but as university applications fall and artists showcase their work online, there are more self-taught artists being discovered.
Take Helen Downie, who started painting on a whim aged 48. She is a self-taught artist who gained international fame from social media. “I was actually quite ignorant and didn’t realise anyone would be watching – [Instagram] was just a place to put my paintings,” she says. Downie’s following rose to more than 100,000 in just under two years when she posted her pictures online under the alias Unskilled Worker. She has since produced portraits for renowned international fashion labels, photographers and galleries.
You could argue tuition is necessary for artists to learn the technicality of their craft. But here, too, things are changing. “Today you can learn almost anything yourself if you have the patience for it,” says Ignasi Monreal, a surrealist artist who taught himself how to create digital art. “As a teenager I decided to just learn things on my own. I never studied fine art – but I got curious and started learning how to do graphics, photography and animation. I stayed up until 3am each night after work watching YouTube tutorials on how to do certain techniques.”
Of course, there are drawbacks to being entirely self-taught. “I’m aware that what I do isn’t what other people do, there’s a lot of rules and institutions in the art world,” says Monreal. “If you’re self-taught, you don’t have someone telling you whether what you’re doing is good or bad. That’s a problem. If you get lost, you have no answers.”
Downie says there is a freedom to creating without instruction. “If you don’t study art, your subject matter is entirely different,” she says. “Everything comes from inside you – which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. I never have anyone else’s opinions on what I should create, whereas I know there can be pressure at art school to produce something others appreciate.”
Downie adds that being self-taught doesn’t mean you’re non-academic. “Someone recently criticised me as a ‘DIY artist’ and I understand what they’re saying. They mean it doesn’t come from an academic viewpoint. But people don’t realise that through teaching myself to paint, I’ve also taught myself about artists I love, and those I don’t like – I’m self-taught in every way.”
If today’s artists are discovered online, there’s a worry that emerging artists will create more populist work to get noticed. “Social media is a fabulous tool, but the response isn’t necessarily based on how good or bad your art is,” says Monreal. “A picture of a cute cat would get a high response, but that’s just because it appeals to a wider audience.”
Downie says: “Just like there are photogenic models, there are photogenic paintings – some art won’t photograph well, even if it’s outstanding.” Work can also be too detailed or intricate for social media, says Monreal. “Seeing something in real life is a completely different experience.”
Whether you study fine art or are entirely self-taught, a successful artistic career still requires luck. “You need the right person to see your work at the right time,” says Downie. The difference now is that social media can create a lot of luck, she adds. “Today, in music, literature or art – if you create something that people want, you will be discovered.”
Though breaking into the mainstream art world as an outsider will always be challenging, for those choosing not to go to university, today’s self-taught artists have more chances to be noticed.
“Now we’re all like Bill Traylor, standing at the side of the road with our paintings, waiting for the right person to go by on their horse,” says Downie.
