Currently on view at the American Folk Art Museum is “Memory Palaces: Inside the Collection of Audrey B. Heckler,” a wonderfully eclectic selection of works in a variety of media by over 80 outsider or self-taught artists from across the globe. The image featured above was fashioned by Felipe Jesus Consalvos, a Cuban-American artist who largely worked as a cigar-roller. After his death in 1960, over 750 collages on a range of unconventional surfaces — from found photographs to musical instruments — were discovered.
What follows are several more images from this rich, tantalizing exhibition — that we plan to revisit several more times before it closes on January 26, 2020:
Italian artist Carlo Zinelli, Untitled, Gouache paint. While hospiralized with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, the late artist created almost two-thousand works with paints and colored pencils between 1957 and 1974.
![](https://artbreakout.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Carlo-Zinelli-outsider-art.jpg)
Italian artist Giovanni Battista Podestå, Untitled, Paint on ceramic, mirror, glitter and cardboard. Born into a peasant family in Northern Italy in 1895, Podestà’s artworks often expressed his distate for the materialism of post-war Italian culture.
![](https://artbreakout.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/giovanni-battista-podestaJPG.jpg)
Swiss painter Christine Sefolosha, Birthgiving, Oil on canvas. Born in Montreux, Switzerland in 1955, the artist’s distinct aesthetic was largely influenced by the years she spent living as a white woman in apartheid South Africa.
![](https://artbreakout.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/christine-sefolosho-e1569441605433.jpg)
French duo Alfred and Corrine Marié aka ACM, Untitled, Pieces of typewriters, alarm clocks, transistor radios and electronic parts — with cables and glue. An art school dropout, Alfred Marié, along with his partner Corrine, creates whimsical assemblages that evolve into complex architectural objects.
![](https://artbreakout.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/a.c.m.-sculpture.jpg)
Southern preacher and artist Howard Finster, The Devil’s Vice…,Paint on board. Known for his visionary art and passionate sermons, the Reverend Howard Finster created thousands of spiritually-inspired paintings. along with remarkable environmental sculptures, until his death in 2001.
![](https://artbreakout.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/howard-finster-outsider-art-e1569460001431.jpg)
Ethiopian artist Gedewon Makonnen, Untitled, Tempera on paper. Trained as a cleric in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Gedewon was also a healer, who created strikingly elegant talismanic art.
![](https://artbreakout.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/gedewon-makonnen-outsider-art.jpg)
Located at 2 Lincoln Square (Columbus Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets), the American Folk Art Museum is open Tuesday–Thursday: 11:30 am–7:00 pm; Friday: 12:00–7:30 pm; Saturday: 11:30 am–7:00 pm and Sunday, 12:00–6:00 pm. Admission is always free.
Research for this post: City-as-School intern Angelize Santiago
Photo credits: 1, 2 & 7 Angelize Santiago; 3 – 6 Lois Stavsky