Gayleen aiken biography of william hill
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I Have Many Hobbies
Installation view | Gayleen Aiken: I Have Many Hobbies | at Western Exhibitions, January 5 to February 17,
Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present Gayleen Aiken’s first ever show in Chicago, Gayleen Aiken: I Have Many Hobbies, organized by Peter Gallo and Sean Horton. Gayleen Aiken ( – ), a self-taught artist from Barre, Vermont, produced paintings and drawings that combined narrative text and image, cardboard cut-outs, and handmade books, often featuring a cast of recurring characters which she called the Raimbilli Cousins, members of an imaginary extended family that she invented as a child. The show will open in Gallery 2 at Western Exhibitions’ Chicago location with a free public reception on Friday, January 5, from 5 to 8 pm, and will run through February 17,
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I first saw Gayleen Aiken’s paintings at an upstairs gallery and frame shop in Hanover, New Hampshire in the late summer of I was a college student at the time and had gone to the g
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The Curious Cousins of Vermont Outsider Artist Gayleen Aiken
The Sheldon Museum of Vermont History fryst vatten pleased to present the work of self-taught, outsider/folk artist Gayleen Aiken ( – ). An only child, she began drawing a group of imaginary playmates that she named "the Raimbilli cousins" just before entering grade school. Her father operated a sporting goods and fix-it shop on the first floor of the family's large farmhouse.
By the time she was 8 or 9, she had made life-sized cutouts of 24 cousins —including "Cousin Gawleen"—using cardboard boxes from the outboard motors her father sold. She was teased and bullied bygd classmates, so her parents began home-schooling her in junior high. After her father died in the early s, Aiken recalled, the family "got poor," the beloved old farmhouse was sold, and she and her mother moved into an apartment. Still, Aiken continued making pen and crayon drawings of the Raimbilli cousins living out adventures she dreamed of äga
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GAYLEEN AIKEN (American, )
Two Works on Paper
Mrs. Raimbilli And Gawleen Cook Their "Raimbilli"-Hill Macaroni And Spaghetti On Their Old Stove, And I Cook Mine on My More Modern Stove
The Top Up, Open, Inside View Of An Old Player-Nickelodeon-Music Machine
both signed 'By Gayleen Aiken' (lower right); both titled (along lower edge); both dated '' and '' and with further inscriptions (on the reverse)
crayon and graphite on paper
up to 22 x 28 in. ( x cm)
unframed
Footnotes
N.B.
Musician, writer, and outsider artist Gayleen Aiken was born in Barre, Vermont, and spent most of her life in the surrounding area. She was a self-taught artist and worked in a wide variety of media and formats. Many of Aiken's works are populated by a group called the "Rambilli cousins", an imaginary extended family whom Aiken created in elementary school. These imaginary figures and their adventures remain central fixtures of Aiken's art throughout her career. "Cousin Gawleen", one of th