Art Environments
The Passion of Eccentrics
Roadside Attractions

Part of the fun of taking weekend trips is visiting all the roadside attractions along the way.

There are monumental and unique art environments to discover – some are just off the highway, others are hidden like precious Easter eggs.

Visionary and outsider artists are driven by passion and devote themselves sometimes to a lifetime of backbreaking work to build their highly personal and often crazy art works - come high or low water.

Even though I divided them into Art Environments, Unusual Shrines, and Unusual Houses – sometimes it’s not easy to categorize them. All are powerful and impressive manifestations of an individual desire to express highly personal visions.

I am full of admiration for these mostly untrained artists. Their concentration, talent and dedication to their work – no matter how crazy, wicked, provocative or bizarre – is truly laudable.

Share Your Favourite Outsider Art Environment with us! Click here and leave your thoughts, notes and pictures!

Canada- France- Spain- Italy- United States

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CANADA

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"Rolf Heer's Chainsaw Carvings - Radium Hot Springs, BC"

Rolf Heer carved more than thousand Chainsaw Sculptures and exhibits them in his very unusual home that resembles more a fairytale treehouse...

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"Screaming Heads - Peter Camani - Burk's Falls, ON - Canada"

Peter Camani created a Concrete Sculptor Garden extraordinaire. Screaming heads, giant hands, concrete trees and horsemen inhabit his property next to Midlothian Castle...

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FRANCE

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"Palais Idéal, Ferdinand Cheval - Hauterives - France"

What started with a sore toe and gained mementos in Ferdinand Cheval's dreams, ended 33 years later as a whimsical and eccentric fantasy castle. It's inhabited by creatures and history figures of all sorts...

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SPAIN

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"The Works of Antoni Gaudi - Barcelona"

Antoni Gaudi developed a very unique style of architecture. His professor proclaimed that Gaudi's work was either that of an insane man or a genius....

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ITALY

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"The Tarot Garden – Niki de Saint Phalle, Capalbio, GR - Italy"

An Italian roadside attractions not to miss: Niki de Saint Phalle built her Tarot Garden, her sanctuary of imagination and dreams, a magical world of overwhelming splendour, in Italy...

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UNITED STATES

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"American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, MD - USA"

The American Visionary Art Museum, located in the Baltimore Inner Harbor is worth the visit even if you don’t like Museums. It is one of the most exciting museums of the United States...

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"Watts Towers of Simon Rodia, Los Angeles, CA - USA"

The Watts Towers of Simon Rodia in Los Angeles are unique monuments of vernacular architecture, American naïve art, and an engineering masterpiece…

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