Mixed Signals, is a group exhibition of artists from the outsider, contemporary, and emerging fields. Works made over the span of 60 years incorporate “do-it-yourself” techniques and more traditional methods. Topics include invented territories, personal obsessions, and depictions of real world concerns.

James Castle, Jen DeNike, Felipe Jesús Consalvos, Teppei Kaneuji, and Sterling Ruby exhibit collage and assemblage of found materials, advertising labels, and magazine images. The resulting recombinations of familiar items create manifestations of isolated beauty as well as portraits of political wit.

Pages in a 1960’s wallpaper sample book provide visual contrasts to the visionary architectural ballpoint pen drawings by Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, while discarded library books become the simple and available means to house drawings by Purvis Young. Fabric samples by Japanese weavers are anonymously compiled in shima cho (sample books).

Internalized obsession energizes the ink drawings by Eugene Andolsek and Martin Thompson. The clarity of Mark Lombardi’s painstakingly researched charts provides an anxious visual alternative. Accumulation, another manic disorder, feeds the actions of Hiroyuki Doi and Vargas-Suarez Universal.

Dream states are playfully suggested by Roxy Paine and Paper Rad. The surreal landscapes of David Dupuis and Joseph Yoakum settle beside the protective and self-created environments drawn by Madge Gill and Janet Sobel. Kelly Heaton’s depiction of two trees located in the Swiss countryside offers a contemporary setting. Henry Darger, author of the most exhaustive fantasy realm, Duke Riley, self-described “artist and patriot,” and Masahiko Kuwahara each present fictional histories. Autobiography lays the groundwork for contributions by Chris Burden, Ilya Kabakov, Lee Lozano, and Suzanne McClelland.

The detailed figurative drawings of jumbled images by Chris Hipkiss and Timothy Wehrle contrast with the sensitive renderings of the recently uprooted communities of China’s Three Gorges region by Yun Fei-Ji and Roy Ferdinand’s drawings of the pulsing life formerly found in New Orleans Lower 9th Ward.

Special thanks to Martina Batan for organizing the exhibition and for generously making available a large selection of works from her collection.