CHICAGO (July 1, 2025) — The twenty-two artists in the exhibition are marginalized or outside the mainstream in (at least) two ways—they are immigrants or migrants, and they have not come to art through the traditional forms of training or schooling. Immigrants and self-taught artists, though, are also central to Chicago’s sense of itself as a community. The margins and the mainstream become each other, just as Conners’ daubs of paint turn into Chicago itself.
“Catalyst” is, inevitably, in part about the experience of marginality, displacement and in some cases trauma. Intuit Art Museum chief curator and co-curator of the who, Alison Amick, told Observer that she did not believe that immigrants were more likely to be self-taught artists than non-immigrants—but co-curator Dana Boutin notes that for each immigrant artist, “what was happening during their life certainly influenced their path in different ways.”
Intuit champions the diverse voices of self-taught art, welcoming both new and familiar audiences. Intuit presents the work of self-taught artists—also known as outsider art. These artists typically work outside the mainstream and may have faced societal, economic or geographic barriers to a traditional path of art making. By presenting a diversity of artistic voices, Intuit builds a bridge from art to audiences.
