ARTISTS TALKING

A touch of madness is probably a very healthy thing. This exhibition, the largest of its kind in London since 1979, brings together a collection of unusual and untrained artists – past and present – whose inspired, eccentric and occasionally pathological leanings give rise to a wealth of fascinating artwork. Apocalyptic visionaries meet mathematical masterminds; paranoid schizophrenics mingle with animists and concocters of paranormal formulae. Louis Wain (1860-1939) was an illustrator specialising in cat portraits – his feline heads explode against a backdrop of kaleidoscopic paintwork like embroidery, or a million tiny Ferris wheels on fire. Charles Benefiel (born 1962) paints only in dots. In his untitled painting, ink, varnish and tea-stains coalesce to suggest a Stalinesque figure dressed in a Victorian straitjacket. The dark head is thrown back in a vegetative grimace, as if awaiting some form of spiritual possession.

'Private Worlds' follows an exhibition of Cynthia Pell's work at the gallery in 1999 and continues its long-standing commitment to marginal art forms. Comprehensive text provides impressive accounts of each artist, putting the affected understatement of many contemporary artists to shame. Often springing from humble origins, most of the contributing artists were diagnosed as mentally ill and spent part or all of their lives in institutions. Art is presented here as a means of private catharsis rather than a public gesture. Rosemarie Koczÿ (born 1939) produces pen-and-ink drawings in remembrance of Holocaust victims, conducting a belated burial process in which each picture 'weaves' a shroud. Such works reflect visionary and outsider art as a painstaking form of expression in which religious fanaticism conducts back to feelings of loss. "Habitual to the point of obsessiveness" as the catalogue describes one artist, just about sums it up – an art of madness affirming the depth of human obsessions – however cracked-up they may seem.