“We are pilgrims seeking the past, the genuine, the individual.”

 

New Folk Visionaries is an exhibition concept from the Pack of Wolves exploring a collective interest in folk art traditions in the 21st century. It is a presentation of neo-folk art from five artists emerging on the outside edge.

Traditionally outsiders, folk people and visionaries are often self-taught, marginalised from mainstream society. Despite our modern socially networked, Wi-Fied, 5G times, the Pack of Wolves have never stopped celebrating what it is to be an outsider; standing on the fringes looking in and observing, analysing, forever questioning what we see.

Our work explores contemporary society, values and morals, through storytelling, legend and tradition. Uncanny and obscure motifs are frequent in much of our work as we try to make sense of what we see and experience in this mad world.

Humour is important in ensuring that we aren’t engulfed by the banal horrors of modern living. We frequently poke fun at the norm with our ugly-beauty and tongue-in-cheek commentary on social mores and what is acceptable and what is not.

In keeping with folk art traditions you can expect to encounter work in an array of media including, but not limited to, embroidery, painting, moving image, and 3D collaged objects. Our curiosity has led us to teach ourselves these crafts. We make our puppets from driftwood and our witches eyes from plastic coated bagels. We celebrate the mundane and make it magical.

New Folk Visionaries - an enchanting and sometimes disturbing exhibition of making, creating, performing, witching, spelling, hoaxing and coaxing, using self-taught traditional skills, with the emphasis on the way of the outsider.