On Wednesday, Nov. 8, The Outsider Art Museum & Gallery will open at 2510 Portland Ave. The museum, which goes by the acronym OMG, will feature “Outsider Art,” which is creative expressive forms that exist outside the accepted canon of fine art and cultural norms. The term is often a catchall phrase for self-taught artists, folk art, etc. 

According to an OMG press release, “Expressing creativity in its most direct and uninhibited form, Outsider Artists are often formally untrained and some may be living with disabilities and/or suffering social exclusion.”

 

OMG Director and co-founder Alex Huninghake said in the release, “The Outsider Art Museum & Gallery is all about celebrating the beauty and value of artists who are often underrepresented in the fine art world and museum/gallery context.”

The inaugural exhibition will feature the work of the late Louisville artist and well-known Highlands staple, Mark Anthony Mulligan. The show, “Mark Anthony Mulligan: Share a Little of Things of Yourself,” will showcase selected works that highlight Mulligan’s real and imagined cityscapes, as well as his musical performances.

Al Gorman, artist and art historian, writes of Mulligan, “Art making isn’t simply therapy for Mulligan. It is the crucial way that he makes sense and creates order from the chaos that, regrettably, has so often defined his life. Throughout his career as a sign and logo artist, it is his art that has held his world together and provided him with some honor as a contributing member of our culture. His art has presence because we can recognize in his insistent way, the human birthright to form and create meaning.”

The opening is set to feature a screening of the short documentary “Peacelands/Mark Anthony Mulligan,” followed by a Q&A with the director, Greg Maddox.

Other artists on display at OMG will include Marvin Finn, Lonnie and Twyla Money, Minnie Adkins, LaVon Van Williams Jr., and more.

Preview the “Peacelands/Mark Anthony Mulligan” documentary here: