The most exciting contemporary art show which I have ever seen was by the artist Stephen Wright and held at the Last Tuesday Society in Hackney, London in 2010. This venue, is in itself one of the most extraordinary places in the city, with a bizarre and extensive collection of neglected objects for sale- most of them in some way occult or obscene, including shrunken human heads, animals pickled in glass jars, instruments of torture and the erect penis of a hanged man from the 18th century (unless that's been sold by now). There are more or less continuous contemporary art shows on display there, as well as many different kinds of talks and workshops.

Entering the shop that evening was perhaps the most intense bodily experience I have ever had in direct relation to any artwork of any medium. Having been invited to the show without having any idea of quite what the art might consist of, I walked through the door (my first trip to the shop even!) to encounter such a dizzying, seemingly endless array of colours and forms, that my mind unspooled, fragmented, dissolved. I was both frightened and grateful.

This work is traditionally known as Outsider Art, a phenomenon which fascinates me, which I feel a profound affinity with. I really don't care about the orthodoxies of any artistic establishment, am far more concerned with creation undertaken purely for impassioned purposes, that is not overly worried about impressing anyone, that emblazons itself jubilantly on its sleeves, rather than languishing in the comfortable obscurity of textbook theories, of official accolades.

Since 1999 Mr. Wright has been transforming his own house, in Dulwich, into a living artwork. These photographs are all of this abode. He is apparently open to members of the public arranging visits, but I have yet to do this myself.

His work, with its myriad of forms, of dolls, bottle caps, seashells, garlands, its long looping handpainted texts of autobiography, is very natural & warm & human, with a delightfully pitched sense of the ridiculous, expressing essentially universal desires for play, for colour, for joy. I find it immensely inspiring and defiant.

dream i will never have #1:

kidnapped. benevolently. blindfolded, but otherwise unburdened by my captors, led towards the insides of a mysterious vehicle.

eventually, inevitably, the countryside. led into a building with a vast echoing chamber. after encountering various delights to the senses (mild dronings, aniseed placed on tongue etc.) veil is lifted to reveal a large room, entirely empty and white, in its centre a spiral staircase leading downwards. i am compelled to investigate.

at the bottom of the steps an enormous network of teeming underground passageways, a series of secret cities, their thoroughfares and byways thronging with pedestrians and stray cats.

i wander for some time. linger in a cathedral built from antique clocks. pay for a shave in a barber´s shop replete with tropical fishtank. come across intriguing unknown publications for sale at a street kiosk. discover a boutique selling only single sentences written on scraps of cardboard.

In full growth an artichoke plant can spread 9 feet in diameter and stand 5 feet tall. Typically a plant will produce about 20 artichokes in a year.

Artichoke seeds, probably cultivated, were discovered when excavating Mons Claudianus, a Roman quarry in eastern Egypt where Black Quartz Diorite was once mined.

The Romans considered artichokes to be an aphrodisiac, and this belief continued up to the 16th Century. During this time women were prohibited from eating them.

Picasso painted his "Woman with an Artichoke" in 1941, in Paris. His work depicts a woman whose features have been distorted and fragmented, perhaps by the terrors of war. Here the artichoke resembles a spiky weapon, like a club, and is held on to defiantly.

 Osias Beert, a Flemish painter of Still Lifes who lived from 1580 until 1624, entitled this painting "Still Life with an Artichoke".

Castroville, California (pop. 6481) proclaims itself to be "The Artichoke Center of the World". Almost the entirety of the U.S. artichoke supply is produced in and around Castroville.

"The World's Largest Artificial Artichoke" is on display here in a parking lot. It was crafted from steel and plaster in 1963.

Every year an Artichoke Festival is held in Castroville. At the first, in 1948, Marilyn Monroe was declared Artichoke Queen.

Cynar is a dark brown bittersweet liquer, still manufactured in Italy by Campari, whose most significant ingredient is an artichoke (Cynara scolymus). It was first launched in 1952 and is apparently especially popular in Switzerland.

YOU SHOULD ON OCCASION EXERCISE CAUTION HERE

WITHIN THIS PLACE THERE BE CURIOSITIES

DECLARATIONS OF BELIEF MASQUERADING AS INNOCENT ASIDES

RIGOROUSLY UNDISCIPLINED DISPLAYS OF LOPSIDED AND NEGLECTED ITEMS OF PARAPHENALIA

LARGE NUMBERS OF OVERLOOKED SPONTANEOUS GESTURES CATALOGUED IN AD HOC FASHION

A STRONG LIKING FOR THE JOYS TO BE DISCOVERED IN ECHOLALIA

DANGERS WHICH ARISE WHEN ONE NO LONGER CARES IF ONE IS PERCEIVED AS RIDICULOUS

WHY NOT EXERCISE ALL OF YOUR FUTURE ARTWORKS IN THE MEDIUM OF CONVERSATION?

FUTURE ATTAINABLE GOAL: A REGULAR PUBLICATION DEDICATED TO METAPHORS DERIVED FROM GAZING AT FLAKES OF SOAP FROTH

MAY THERE BE NO MORE GROTESQUERIES OF ABERRANT CONQUESTS!