In 2024, my rediscovery of outsider art deeply influenced the creation of the unique piece L’Enfant Papillon, unveiled in September of the same year. In this new article, I wanted to return to the origins of this discovery and the reflections it sparked.

My first encounter with a non-academic artistic practice, akin to outsider art, dates back to my teenage years, during a seaside vacation. The house I was staying in seemed unremarkable at first glance: bare walls, no decoration… except for one detail.

In the staircase leading to the first floor, small square paintings were carefully aligned on the wall. These canvases had been painted and then given to the owner by a psychiatric patient who spent his time clumsily reproducing Mondrian’s works.

As a teenager, these paintings intrigued me. Without knowing the concept of outsider art, I wondered about the painter’s mental state and its possible influence on his artistic practice. While I found no answers at the time, these fake Mondrians left a vivid memory in my mind until my true discovery of outsider art in 2024.

This term, developed by Jean Dubuffet in the mid-20th century, refers to the creations of artists working on the fringes of society, without academic training or classical artistic culture. These creators belonged to the world of mystics, psychiatric patients, criminals, or simply the reclusive. While some see outsider art as an attempt to rediscover a form of pure artistic creation free from academic constraints, I perceive it above all as an invitation to question our perception of reality and, more importantly, our definition of normality.

Henry Darger and the Realms of the Unreal

One of the leading figures of outsider art is Henry Darger, an American artist and writer who lived in the 20th century. A great loner, he was deeply marked by a long stay in a psychiatric hospital at the age of 13.

Darger’s most notable work is his illustrated narrative The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. This work consists of watercolors, drawings, and collages depicting the adventures of seven princesses living in the kingdom of Abbieannia. Confronted by the cruel John Manley’s machinations, the seven princesses fight to save their kingdom and free its enslaved children. A self-taught artist, Henry Darger traced, copied, and colored images from American comics.

Darger’s way of creating deeply moved, inspired, and reassured me. Without academic training or formal drawing education, he remained an autodidact who found alternative ways to express himself. As a self-taught creator, I often question the legitimacy of works relying on imperfect or limited techniques. I find it interesting that outsider art challenges this notion of legitimacy, reminding us that creation can break free from academic frameworks while preserving what truly matters: the aesthetics of transmission.

The L’Enfant Papillon necklace is a direct tribute to Darger’s work, as it draws inspiration from a type of creature he imagined: the Blenguins. Half-child, half-butterfly, these hybrid beings inhabit a universe where the line between innocence and eeriness is often blurred. In my previous article, I discussed the role of imagination in my mental framework. I believe it is an essential thread for me, rooted in my childhood, which is why Henry Darger’s work touched me so deeply. His particular relationship with childhood and his desire never to grow up suggest to me that, over the years, a very thin boundary formed between his work and his life. While Henry Darger eventually aged, perhaps Abbieannia represents his Neverland, populated by lost children, where his thoughts remain, eternally young.

Séraphine de Senlis and Else Blankenhorn: Between Vegetal Fervor and Solitude

Séraphine Louis, known as Séraphine de Senlis, was born in 1864 in the Oise region of France. Coming from a modest background, she became an orphan at the age of seven and was taken in by her elder sister. Raised in the countryside, she developed a deep bond with nature, speaking to plants and trees as if they were living beings. Her omnipresent religious fervor was also the source of her mystical visions. One of these visions, appearing as an angel, revealed to her that she was the "florist of the Virgin" and that she must dedicate her life to painting. Although she descended into madness in the 1930s, her work is not solely defined by this. As Giordana Charuty explains, Séraphine left behind vibrant paintings filled with “tormented flowers and paradise trees,” through which she conveyed not only her religious fervor but also the inherent solitude of her condition as a woman.

This sense of solitude is also present in another outsider art artist, Else Blankenhorn, born in Germany in 1873. An embroiderer, musician, singer, translator, and composer, Else spent much of her life in sanatoriums. Convinced that she was the spiritual wife of Prussian Emperor Wilhelm II, she devoted part of her work to creating a currency intended to fund a mysterious project led by her imagined husband: the "resurrection of loving couples." The banknotes, painted in blue ink, depict hybrid female figures, somewhere between harpies and angels.

Outsider Art: Exploring and Transmitting Our Inner Worlds

Henry Darger, Séraphine de Senlis, and Else Blankenhorn all seemed to have evolved in intangible worlds, oscillating between mysticism, dreams, and nightmares. However, I believe it would be too easy to reduce their creations to mere manifestations of madness.

If outsider art has resonated so deeply with me, it is also for personal reasons. In April 2024, my grandmother spoke for the first time about her hallucinations. Her daily life gradually became filled with unruly children, spectral shapes, and forgotten sisters.

Although my grandmother has no artistic practice, I feel that her visions, like those of the artists mentioned earlier, reflect profound loneliness and a difficult relationship with life. I like to think that these mental architectures, far from being purely irrational, are grounded in concrete personal realities and vulnerabilities. This is what Else Blankenhorn suggests when she states: “The life of thought is, after all, very real.” This idea is comforting because it implies that fragments of beauty and tangibility always persist, even in the most dreamlike and imagined spaces. It is even more reassuring as it suggests the possibility of establishing connections of understanding between different perceptions of reality.

I find these connections in my own practice, which consists of exploring my inner worlds and translating them into jewelry or objects as a means of transmission and catharsis. Each piece and collection brings me back to a specific mindset, sources of inspiration, and particular memories that, over time, form a vast tapestry of what drives me daily.

While outsider art can easily be romanticized, leading us to forget that some artists within this movement truly lost themselves in their realities, I see it as a reminder that beyond mystical visions, imagined loves, and enchanted realms, there always remains the desire to transmit what inhabits our inner lives.