Artist+ Members Raynes Birkbeck, Jerry the Marble Faun, and Joyce McDonald discuss their artwork in Visual AIDS‘ summer exhibition PERSONS OF INTEREST. PERSONS OF INTEREST: SELF-TAUGHT VISIONARIES brings together these artists to consider the imaginative potential of work by self-taught, visionary and outsider artists.

Prominently featured in the cult classic documentary Grey Gardens, Jerry the Marble Faun now carves majestic sculptures out of limestone, marble, and more; he first took up sculpting in his partner’s apartment stairwell in 1987.

The spirit of Joyce McDonald‘s artwork erupts from internal visions and the range of emotions she has experienced throughout her colorful life, as a minister, in recovery, and beyond.

Raynes Birkbeck‘s idiosyncratic drawings and sculpture blend the supernatural and science fiction with the vernacular and commonplace, resulting in work that he hopes shows “the beauty, the power, the love and the need of nature or a higher power. And even in the most mundane and commonplace things that “the Force” is always present.”

PERSONS OF INTEREST, curated by Sam Gordon for Visual AIDS, features a wide cross section of Visual AIDS artist members and friends. The term, “person of interest” often identifies someone in an investigation that possesses characteristics that merit further attention. The investigation presented here is a collection of drawing, painting, photography, performance, video, and sculpture.

PERSONS OF INTEREST, presented by Visual AIDS at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division features the trained and self taught, long term survivors and the prematurely lost, and individuals who live for us very much in the present, some only in our hearts and minds.

The exhibition includes work by Raynes Birkbeck, Mark Carter, Ben Cuevas, Chloe Dzubilo, Arnold Fern, Tim Greathouse, Keith Haring, Hudson, Affrekka Jefferson, Jerry the Marble Faun, Joyce McDonald, Lucas Michael, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luna Luis Ortiz, Hugh Steers, Hunter Reynolds, Tseng Kwong Chi, Muna Tseng, and Frederick Weston.

Pictured works from left:

Jerry the Marble Faun, Pairs (Big Edie and Little Edie), 2009, Limestone with moss, 13 1/2 x 19 x 6 1/2, Courtesy the artist and Jackie Klempay Gallery

Raynes Birkbeck, Untitled, 2012 Acrylic on paper

Joyce McDonald, “In Emotion”, 1999, Terra cotta, cloth & paint, 9x6x6