The circular face here - ringed by agitated, spiky scrawlings that simultaneously evoke solar rays and untamed hair - positions the work firmly within the tradition of Art Brut's deliberate collapse of cosmological symbol into portraiture. Harriet Osei-Bonsu's scratchy red lines channel Dubuffet's contention that raw, unpolished draughtsmanship carries a psychological charge that academic refinement simply cannot access. The grinning mouth, rendered with layered urgency, pulls the whole composition toward something carnivalesque and genuinely unnerving.
The circular face here - ringed by agitated, spiky scrawlings that simultaneously evoke solar rays and untamed hair - positions the work firmly within the tradition of Art Brut's deliberate collapse of cosmological symbol into portraiture. Harriet Osei-Bonsu's scratchy red lines channel Dubuffet's contention that raw, unpolished draughtsmanship carries a psychological charge that academic refinement simply cannot access. The grinning mouth, rendered with layered urgency, pulls the whole composition toward something carnivalesque and genuinely unnerving.
- Curatorial note, wifärt gallery