Forrest Bess (1911-1977) was a strange, rather tormented figure--a gay man in a conservative small town in Texas who felt he didn't fit either the gay or straight world--he saw himself as a hermaphrodite (and cut himself to make his body fit his spirit).

His work is simple and self-taught but not quite folk art; he was well-read in mythology and collected (or developed) an alphabet of private glyphs with both mystical and sexual meanings. Many of his paintings use these, others are purely abstract, but a lot are hypnogogic dreams--the images he saw falling asleep, half asleep or waking up. Hypnogogy often has a feel of rushing forward, being deluged in images; note how despite their minimalism most of these have a sense of depth; they're not decorations on a flat picture-plane but depict space and imply motion.

The Crowded Mind / The Void, by Forrest Bess, 1946	The Premonition, by Forrest Bess, 1947
Untitled, by Forrest Bess, 1957	Complete Freedom by Forrest Bess, 1970

'Drawings' by Forrest Bess, 1967

His work isn't my thing at all, but one small painting like these on Antiques Roadshow was valued at $100,000 or so. Somebody out there likes him.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible by Claire Elliot, 2013, pp.29, 32, 58, 68-9, 86. Plus Antiques Roadshow...

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites