Metropolitan Pavilion

125 West 18th Street

New York, NY 10011

Booth C6

Stellarhighway is excited to participate in Outsider Art Fair 2024 with an in-person group presentation highlighting paintings by the Kenyan artist collective Pamoja; ceramic masks by Moroccan-American maker Manal Kara; and colored pencil and ink portraits by Vermont-based artist Margaret Mousseau. Though the artists’ practices are disparate, the work is linked formally through their organic forms, freneticism and tendency of each artist to let an image resolve from multiple, diverging/converging parts. Additionally, online we will feature two exhibitions by pseudonymic makers: the first concerning astrological charts by a maker who signed two of their drawings “Pappas”, and the second being a selection from a group of one hundred and forty vintage gelatin silver prints by a German tourist to India c. 1920 who is known as “Uncle Fritz.”

Manal Kara (b. 1986) is a Moroccan-American self-taught artist working across sculpture, photography, installation, video and text. While Kara eschews finding meaning in their work, they embrace all associations a viewer may have. Their ceramic masks have the feeling of elemental spirits manifesting, rising from patches of sea foam, the shaded leaves of the deep forest, or an encrusted gemstone. Their recent solo exhibitions include Sacred Topologies at Deli Gallery in New York; Hypòtheses at Pangée in Montreal; Conjectures at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles; Xylem and Phlöem at No Place, Columbus, OH; THE VIEWING-ROOM VS. THE ADORING-GAZE at Interstate Projects, Brooklyn; and, Song of the Other Worm at Prairie, Chicago. Selected group exhibitions include Jupiter Finger at Real Pain, Los Angeles (now Harkawik); Suspended Disbelief at Arsenal Contemporary, Toronto; and K as in Knight at Helena Anrather, New York. They have participated in residencies at Shandaken Projects, ACRE, Ox-Bow, September Spring at the Kesey Farm, and Project Freewill. Their poetry has been featured by Changes Press, Poetry Project and the Academy of American Poets, among others. Upcoming exhibitions include those at Hair + Nails, Minneapolis, MN and M. LeBlanc, Chicago, IL. Kara is currently based in Gary, IN.

Margaret Mousseau (b. 1955) studied to be an x-ray technician and worked in a hospital for over twenty years while raising her two sons. She began drawing in her early 60s, often sorting the hardships and traumas she has suffered. Now, working in colored pencil on paper, scraps of cardboard and found wood panels, Mousseau has created an often humorous and whimsical world that flies in the face of the memories it explores. Her portraits on view encompass a wide range of subjects, from an expert giving a talk at a local university to a sassy teen daydreaming of nature. Mousseau has shown at The Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art, Carl Freedman Gallery, White Columns, Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Outsider Art Fair, Intersect Chicago, One Mile Gallery and the Visual Art Center of New Jersey. Her work is included in the public collections of the Bennington Museum, Bennington, VT; and The Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art, Belgrade, Serbia. She is also represented in Pierogi Flatfiles and White Columns Curated Artist Registry. Margaret currently resides in Vermont.

Pamoja is a collective of eight self-taught Kenyan artists who were frequent collaborators of the legendary photographer Peter Beard in illustrating his work for over four decades (1968-2017). Its members are Elizaphanson Mwangi Kuria Gibson, Nathaniel Kivoi Philip Mathenge, Gibson Kuria Mwangi, Macharia Mwangi, Gabriel Macharia Mwangi, Solomon Misigo Mugasia, Nicholas Njenga Mutarin, and Peter Marimbe Parsimei. Although their individual and collective artistic pursuits differ formally, all revolve around themes of wildlife and environmental conservation, are keenly observed, and display deep knowledge of craft. The paintings on view range from colorful African landscapes to expert abstractions to calls for political action. Pamoja—Swahili for “together”—is an effort by its members to continue their passion for making, and to embolden makers like themselves who are often overlooked, buried or dismissed in the pages of art history. On their individual accord and through their contributions to Beard’s studio, the collective’s work is represented in prominent public and private collections of art around the world. Their work was shown under their own names for the first time at Affirmation Arts in New York, NY. The members of Pamoja are currently scattered across Kenya, but hope to soon build a collective studio in Nairobi.

The group of astrological birth charts by pseudonymic maker Pappas, and their associated indices, were completed in the 1980s. Following the standard pattern for birth charts, Pappas further color-coded and decorated the charts with symbols, signed some and dated a few. Though the basic structure remains the same across the eight completed drawings, their construction and level of finish varies. The larger group encompasses notes for the creation of the charts—hand-written references for the houses and signs (some paginated), a calendar with associations for specific dates, and miscellaneous symbolic illustrations.

Uncle Fritz’ photographs are a unique group of vernacular photographs that comprise a German gentleman's travelog aboard the S.S. Cleveland’s Around the World Cruise in the early 20th Century. These photographs from the Indian and Egyptian legs of the world tour depict ship life (games, theater, parlor music, portraits of passengers, sailors and the captain), portraits (workers, craftspeople, animals, merchants, groups), street scenes, and landmarks and tourist attractions along the way (Suez Canal, Taj Mahal; elephant riding, snake charmers, urban landscapes, statues, temples and other religious sites). There are a few once-famous titles illustrating this notorious, months-long line including Around the World by William Givens Frizell and George Henry Greenfield (1910), A Cruise Around the World by Paul S. Junkin (1910); 40,000 Miles Around the World by George Tome Bush (1911); Twice Around the World by Edgar Allen Forbes (1912); and, Notes Made During a Cruise Around the World in 1913 by R. H. Casey (1914). This group calls to attention issues of cultural tourism, and its ties to the history of colonialism and exoticism.