Ovartaci

I’ve admired Ovartaci’s work for some time, so finally standing before it was exciting. Ovartaci (born Louis Marcussen) was a fascinating artist who dealt with concepts of gender, transformation, fantasy, and sexuality. The word Ovartaci comes from a play on the Jutland dialect to mean “head lunatic”. They ended up spending a total of 56 years in the Risskov Psychiatric Hospital. Born male, they later identified and lived as a woman for many years following self-castration, before ultimately renouncing that identity and living once again as a man. Classified as “Art Brut”, but just like their gender no label can really describe their work. Unable to paint directly onto the walls of their room, Ovartaci instead created a singular world populated by articulated dolls, paintings, drawings, and life-size hanging figures, allowing them to be surrounded by the feminine beings they admired, idealized, and ultimately fetishized. An enigmatic artist , even though they never really considered themself one, who is finally getting the attention they deserve.