Tom Carapic

Mixed Media Outsider Visionary Art Collage Twilight / Michael Jackson Laminated

Tom Carapic (born 1939), full name Tomislav Sava Čarapić, is an artist who specialises in found object artwork. He also does street art. A prominent Outsider Artist he was a featured artist in the American Visionary Art Museum's End is Near Exhibit. His work was also featured in the exhibition catalog. His work has been sold at Slotin Folk Art. Carapic was born in Velisevac, Serbia (then Kingdom of Yugoslavia). He was educated at a military school in Herzegovina in the 1950s, and served as a sergeant in the Yugoslav People's Army. Afterwards he was denied a college education, possibly because he was not a member of the Communist Party, illegally crossed into Italy in 1961, and, from there, emigrated to the United States. In 1965, he began attending classes at the New York Art Students League, but dropped out soon afterwards, eventually attending the Wilfred Academy of Beauty Culture. He was unable, however, to find steady beauty parlor employment, and worked in menial labor while attending classes in Spanish Education at Manhattan Community College. Due to a problem with accreditation, he was forced to switch to classes in the field of studio art. There he experienced hallucinatory visions that explained his repeated failures to obtain a degree. In the late 1970s, Carapic began experiencing more hallucinatory visions; claiming that his degree problems were caused when "the evil marriage bureau massed the troops" against his college and proceeded with "an Air force bombardment" of the school. After receiving other visitations, he began making and showing his art. Most of his art is centered on found objects, most famously computer keyboards, especially those by IBM. Most of his art consists of these objects, marked with black Sharpie markers, and with green thumbprints and handprints along the objects. His most famous exhibit in New York City is "Big Bang Theory," a doomsday warnings painted on computer keyboards and shoes and construction debris. Bears similarity to the Art Brut movement made famous by Jean Dubuffet. He was inluded in The End is Near! an exhibit which included an unprecedented group of noted thinkers, from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Stephen Jay Gould to Reverend Howard Finster and Apocalypse culture expert ,Adam Parfrey, visionary artists brought together by curator, Roger Manley, for an amazing exhibition at the American Visionary Art Museum, the world’s largest ever mounted on the subjects of Apocalypse, Millennium, and Utopia. The End is Near! featuredwork from the following visionary artists amongst others: William Adkins Z.B. Armstrong Bill Bruley Frank Bruno Harry Leroy Brunson Tom Carapic Pierre Carbonel Howard Finster Tim Fowler Mary Mac Franklin Victor Joseph Gatto Robert Gie Patrick Gimel Hugo Hempel Oskar Herzberg Vojislav Jakic Norbert Kox Charles Keeling Lassiter...

This one is 2 sided with the Brooklyn Bridge on one side and Angkor Wat on the other side. (Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations.) Tom Carapic (born 1939), full name Tomislav Sava Čarapić, is an artist who specialises in found object artwork. He also does street art. A prominent Outsider Artist he was a featured artist in the American Visionary Art Museum's End is Near Exhibit. His work was also featured in the exhibition catalog. His work has been sold at Slotin Folk Art. Carapic was born in Velisevac, Serbia (then Kingdom of Yugoslavia). He was educated at a military school in Herzegovina in the 1950s, and served as a sergeant in the Yugoslav People's Army. Afterwards he was denied a college education, possibly because he was not a member of the Communist Party, illegally crossed into Italy in 1961, and, from there, emigrated to the United States. In 1965, he began attending classes at the New York Art Students League, but dropped out soon afterwards, eventually attending the Wilfred Academy of Beauty Culture. He was unable, however, to find steady beauty parlor employment, and worked in menial labor while attending classes in Spanish Education at Manhattan Community College. Due to a problem with accreditation, he was forced to switch to classes in the field of studio art. There he experienced hallucinatory visions that explained his repeated failures to obtain a degree. In the late 1970s, Carapic began experiencing more hallucinatory visions; claiming that his degree problems were caused when "the evil marriage bureau massed the troops" against his college and proceeded with "an Air force bombardment" of the school. After receiving other visitations, he began making and showing his art. Most of his art is centered on found objects, most famously computer keyboards, especially those by IBM. Most of his art consists of these objects, marked with black Sharpie markers, and with green thumbprints and handprints along the objects. His most famous exhibit in New York City is "Big Bang Theory," a doomsday warnings painted on computer keyboards and shoes and construction debris. Bears similarity to the Art Brut movement made famous by Jean Dubuffet. He was inluded in The End is Near! an exhibit which included an unprecedented group of noted thinkers, from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Stephen Jay Gould to Reverend Howard Finster and Apocalypse culture expert ,Adam Parfrey, visionary artists brought together by curator, Roger Manley, for an amazing exhibition at the American Visionary Art Museum, the world’s largest ever mounted on the subjects of Apocalypse, Millennium, and Utopia. The End is Near! featuredwork from the following visionary artists amongst others: William Adkins Z.B. Armstrong Bill Bruley Frank Bruno Harry Leroy Brunson Tom Carapic Pierre Carbonel Howard Finster Tim Fowler Mary Mac Franklin Victor Joseph Gatto Robert Gie Patrick Gimel Hugo Hempel Oskar Herzberg Vojislav Jakic Norbert Kox Charles Keeling Lassiter...

Gérard Cambon was born in 1960 in Toulouse (Fr). He has a degree in political science and is a self-taught artist. In the earlier years of his life practiced and experimented with collage and model making. Later, with an interest in old machines and patinas he started collecting old and used objects, tools, and fragments of items whose previous lives remained obvious. When he travels, one of his greatest pleasures is to find materials in antique shops or ironmongeries. In 1994, he began creating Locomobiles and reliefs and presented them to the public for the first time at “La Jeune Peinture,” a Parisian art fair. In 1995 , he stayed during 8 months in the hospital for eight months (leukaemia) where he began preparing and creating plans for new Locomobiles and reliefs. As his health improved, he committed himself to his artwork and during the same year met a Parisian gallery owner who decided to organize a solo show for him, Le Galerie Beatrice Soulie in Saint Germain des Pres. He has shown his work since 1996 in Paris and since 2000 in the United States (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle). He is currently being shown by galleries in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg , Denmark, and the United States. He keeps on trying out new materials (fabric, leather, glass, plants, metals,…) that he integrates into his bas-reliefs: traction engines...

To Chicago-based artist Patrick Fitzgerald, his miniature car sculptures are a means of traveling through time. Born from a fascination with the soap box derby cars of his youth, eac...