What makes a person withdraw from the seen and known world most people live in in favor of an environment fashioned solely according to his or her own visionary fantasies? Failure, disappointment, opportunity, true ecstatic experience? In the case of Eddie Owens Martin, it seems it must have been some combination of all those that transformed a son of sharecroppers in rural Georgia into the berobed creator of Pasaquan—the immersive art environment Martin worked on for the last 30 or so years of his life. Organized by Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, and running through March 11 at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, “In the Land of Pasaquan: The Story of Eddie Owens Martin” attempts to tell his tale through his paintings, drawings, clothing, sculpture, and ritual objects.
It’s no accident that Martin made his living as a fortune teller for many years in order to fund his art. Photographs of him in turbans and colorful robes put one in mind of an amusing, mostly harmless charlatan. Wall text in the show indicates that he claimed the patterned suits many of his figures wear had magical powers of levitation and flight, but few of his pictures communicate any such magic. My favorite piece in the entire show is a simple tempera rendering of flowers in a container. It’s painted in flat colors, and the two flowers are like eyes looking back at the viewer. Few other pictures here have the same unadorned evocative power.
Through 3/11 Opening reception Fri 1/5, 5:30-8:30 PM Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art 756 N. Milwaukee 312-243-9088art.org Free
