Skt. Adolf=Riesen=Eßkurial, Reykiawik, bei Marbach,=Wiggen; Kt. Luzern 1916

Adolf Wölfli made this amazing drawing, Skt. Adolf=Riesen=Eßkurial, Reykiawik, bei Marbach,=Wiggen; Kt. Luzern, with colored pencils, but when exactly? Well, the process is the point. The dense network of lines and colors is the real trip. I like how the shapes build and accrete, becoming almost architectural in their complexity. Notice how the text seems to be built into the image? It's like the words are another kind of mark-making, another texture. The whole surface hums with obsessive detail. I keep coming back to the faces scattered throughout - little anchors in a sea of pattern. They are all different and similar - there is a unity and a chaos. Wölfli reminds me a bit of Charles Burchfield, in the way that he builds his works from small gestures until they reach a fever pitch of visionary intensity. For both artists, the act of creation seems to be a way of making sense of the world, or perhaps, of reveling in its glorious, overwhelming nonsense.