Illustration & Design
Art practice
Drawings
© William Denis
Illustration & Design
Art practice
Drawings
© William Denis
Salmaritin is a fictive village born from the meeting of “La S Grand Atelier”, an Art Brut contemporary center, and myself, where the notion of deviance is constantly questioned within a psychiatric background. In this imaginary space, every artist of “La S” gave themselve a specific role while I incarnated the fool confronting the village’s norms and rules. Through a human, organic and artistic dialogue, I created relationships with the inhabitants of this strange village.
In this book, I tell the story of how I encountered the artists of the atelier in a lineary way during three months, event by event, slowly becoming closer and friends in the end. Through the artworks made together, the crazy anecdotes that happened everyday in this place and interviews with specialists of Art Brut and the psychiatric institution about the importance of the village fool, this work is a celebration of deviance and madness.
300 pages, 24x32cm
Courtesy La "S" Grand Atelier