DESCRIPTION:
Pemi Paull plays the world premiere performance of Horror Vacui from Two Wolfli Sketches, by Scott Godin. Performed live at the Chuch of St. John the Divine, Victoria, BC. May 25/2012

Drawings by Adolf Wolfli.

This work draws inspiration from the distinctive and unsettling work of Swiss "artist" Adolf Wölfli (1864 --1930), who, due to an abusive childhood and a subsequent succession of brutal transgressions, spent the majority of his adult life in psychiatric care. As part of his therapy, Wölfli was urged to draw, producing images evocative of his mental state: simultaneously simplistic (due to his lack of formal art training) and complex (due to the intricacy of detail and intensity emanated from these pencil drawings). Wölfli's works became extremely popular in artistic circles, as he became one of the first artists to be associated with the Art Brut or outsider art movement.

HORROR VACUI -- ("fear of empty space"): Wölfli believed that any empty canvas might allow bad spirits to enter the human realm, thus inciting Wölfli to fill the entire surface of every sketch in detail

Horror vacui can be found in the artwork of many of the mentally unstable and/or inmates of psychiatric hospitals, perhaps due to the therapeutic and mandalaic (e.g., repeatedly drawing certain shapes in a manner to soothe the patient) aspects of drawing, as the process becomes as or more important than the artwork itself.

This project would not have been possible without the generosity of the Canada Council for the Arts, who generously funded this project. Thank you very much for supporting this wonderful endeavor.

Scott Godin on the web: www.scottedwardgodin.com