God Loves You 1989

This box, "God Loves You," is by Howard Finster, who made visionary works from found objects. He called himself 'Man of Visions’ and you can see why. It's bursting with angels, towers, and folks, all rendered in bright, almost childlike strokes. Finster's style is about as far from academic as you can get, and I love that. He wasn't trying to hide the process. He’s embracing the raw, the immediate, the feeling of getting an idea down as fast as possible, straight from head to hand. Look at those little red angels zipping around – each one is different. Some are smudgy, some are sharply outlined. The text is part of the image, painted right alongside the figures, looping around them, integrating text and image like you see in speech bubbles in comics. It reminds me a little of those medieval illuminated manuscripts, only with a distinctly American, outsider twist. Like William Blake, but from Georgia. It’s art that asks for belief, not analysis.