The Legendary Raw Arts Festival heads to Los Angeles for March 2008

    /24-7PressRelease/ - IPSWICH, SUFFOLK - January 9, 2008 - The Raw Arts Festival is dedicated to exhibiting artworks by non-mainstream artists. These artists can be Outsider, Folk, Raw or Self-taught. Over the years the festival has exhibited a wide variety of non-mainstream art, such as works created by homeless people, adults with autism and also famous well established Outsider/Raw artists etc.

The Festival has been held annually since August 2004, when the first festival exhibited in London at the Candid Arts Trust in a massive 50,000 square foot gallery located in the heart of London just north of Kings Cross in Angel. The Festival has come along way since then. It has exhibited at the Candid Arts Trust again in 2005, Valencia, Spain in October 2006 and New York, USA in January 2007. In that time, the festival has succeeded in gaining vast quantities of publicity from many of the major publications world-wide including Art Fairs International, Metro, New York Arts Magazine, Raw Vision, The Times, Yahoo news and many many others beside. It has gained widespread international critical acclaim. The first two festivals have been recognized as being 'London's largest and best International exhibition of self-taught art mounted to date'. The 2006 Festival held in Valencia, Spain was referenced as being 'Spain's first non-mainstream art festival' and the Festival held in New York was referenced as being the 'First major non-mainstream arts Festival to offer a fresh alternative to the New York Outsider Art Fair'.

Many of the artists who have exhibited at the Festival have now become well established artists in there own right. The Los Angeles festival is yet again attracting applications from world-class raw artists. Dover Abrams (USA) is an artist and co-curator of the infamous Infusion Gallery in Los Angeles, Akiko Kitami (USA) has exhibited her art works at the prestigious Ward Nasse Gallery in New York, Franco Meloni (Italy) has exhibited his artworks worldwide and is due for a stunning solo exhibition at the Broadway Gallery in New York, Piers Midwinter (UK) - the creator and director of the Raw Arts Festival has exhibited his artworks worldwide and has recently been an artist in residence for a whole month in Beijing, China at the space owned by the New York Arts Magazine. Ben Reche (UK) and Brian Steimel (USA) have also exhibited their artworks worldwide. Brian has participated in the Carnival of Samhain and Ben has artworks featured on the Saatchi on-line website. All of these artists have exhibited previously with the Raw Arts Festival and have received widespread publicity as a result. The Festival is also exhibiting some exciting upcoming artists such as Beth Cornell (USA) who has widely exhibited her art in Arizona, USA. Beth grew up with Folk Art all around her in Pennsylvania and has thus been heavily influenced by self-taught art.

Los Angeles is an exciting place for the Festival to travel too. It is well known as being a major centre for Outsider, Folk, Raw, Surrealist and Low brow art etc. The extraordinary Watts Towers created by Simon Rodia are located here. In 1992, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presented a groundbreaking exhibition titled 'Parallel Visions'. This traced the connections between modern artists and their self-taught colleagues. It played a major role in establishing the field of 'Outsider' art as it exists today. Los Angeles also plays host to a number of organizations dedicated to helping non-mainstream artists such as the 'International House of Blues Foundation' and 'The Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum'.

The Raw Arts Festival 2008 aims to continue the development of raw art in Los Angeles. It stark contrast to many other Outsider/Raw art exhibitions which are often organized by art galleries, the Raw Arts Festival offers artists from all over the world the most prestigious venue for exhibiting there art without 'strings attached'. Artists are thus free and this has resulted in some truly glorious art being exhibited and a truly electric atmosphere being created at the legendary private views. Many artists have traveled world-wide just to participate in the proceedings and to take away with them memories of meeting other great artists etc.

The traveling nature of the Festival has ensured that it does not become institutionalized. More than any other Festival worldwide, the Raw Arts Festival stays true to its free spontaneous roots and thus pays homage to the artists that flock to it. This year, the Festival will exhibit at the Infusion Gallery which is located in downtown Los Angeles. The Gallery is the brainchild of artist/curator Dover Abrams and his wife/artist/gallery coordinator Jill. It is a reasonably large space located on Los Angeles' Gallery Row.

As always, the festival has guaranteed widespread publicity for the upcoming show in March. The show will last for one month. It thus provides visitors to Los Angeles a good opportunity to see something fresh and to invest in some highly valuable art.

The Infusion Gallery is located at: 719 South Spring Street, Los Angeles, California 90014, USA. The show will exhibit from March 2nd to March 26th 2008. The gallery is open from Tuesday through to Saturday, between 12-6 p.m.
For information on the Infusion gallery, please visit: www.infusiongallery.com
For information on the festival and how to apply, please send an e-mail to: [email protected]

This press release was published in early January 2008 and at the time of publication, there were still spaces available. The 2008 festival can only exhibit a limited number of artists and applications are accepted on a first come first served basis. It is thus recommended that artists wishing to apply do so quickly.

Artists are responsible for insuring and safely posting artworks to and from the show.

Artists are responsible for insuring and safely posting artworks to and from the show.

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