Scuffed drawing folder tucked under one arm, a dishevelled looking man walks through the streets of Wellington. An artist is on his way to his studio, calling in to a local stationery store to buy more felt tip pens and graph paper � his standard art materials. He stops to shelter and draw in caf�s, bus shelters and doorways along the way.

In a rare television appearance recently for TV3's arts show, The Living Room, outsider artist Martin Thompson, who readily acknowledges himself as an outcast, makes his way to his studio space at Vincent's Art Workshop. Vincent's is a local organisation that provides art services for people with disabilities, those moving into the community from institutions, the unemployed, people on low incomes and people from the wider community.

Once at the studio, Thompson opens the drawing folder to reveal an optical treasure trove of meticulously crafted, single-colour drawings. Created using mathematical equations to build up complex, hard-edge patterns on graph paper, Thompson's drawings are painstakingly created. He fills in individual squares with coloured ink, working in decimals, fractions and equations, often reciting mathematical sequences as he goes. He then takes a second piece of graph paper and hand copies the pattern in reverse, creating an exact positive/negative pairing. If mistakes are made, he cuts the squares out, re-draws them and re-fits them with Scotch tape back into the original page. All this on graph paper scaled in millimetres. The results are awe inspiring. In a contemporary art world, where computer manipulations and Photoshop are becoming commonplace, it is necessary to keep reminding yourself that Thompson's work is all hand done � with no computer in sight.

Meanwhile in New York, the 1.8 million readers of the weekly New York Magazine opened their 26 September 2005 issue and read a review about Martin Thompson's work. Thompson and four other "emerging self-taught artists" from around the world were included in the New York American Folk Art Museum's exhibition Obsessive Drawing � from September 2005 to March this year. For several months the reviews of the show continued to flow, with coverage in the New York Times and Art News to name a few. How is it that this virtually unknown New Zealand artist has achieved such international exposure but is yet to have many exhibitions in his homeland?

A lot of Thompson's recent success can be attributed to the advocacy efforts of Massey University's Stuart Shepherd, who first met the artist 10 years ago when he worked as an art tutor at Vincent's. "It drove me crazy to think that no one knew how good Marty's work was; not to acknowledge and give credit for good art is wrong," says Shepherd.

Shepherd, an artist and academic, has worked hard to build an audience and gain recognition for New Zealand outsider artists. As part of his efforts to remove the stigma attached to such people, he has made a comprehensive survey of New Zealand outsider art or self-taught and visionary art, as he prefers to call it.

"I want to shift the community's prejudices, to find good quality exhibition venues for these artists and to publish a book about their work. It is important for a healthy community to acknowledge its eccentric creatives," he says.

Oddly enough, it was through the work of one of the world's most famous "eccentric creatives", Henry Darger, that the New York opportunity arose for Thompson and Shepherd. Darger, a janitor who lived a solitary life in Chicago, created a massive literary and graphic body of work that was not discovered until after his death in 1973. Hundreds of watercolour paintings illustrated Darger's 15,000-page epic story, The Realms of the Unreal. In it chaotic scenes of war, slavery, invasion, torture and violence are seen through the childlike vision of a tribe of heroic girl warriors.

The Auckland Art Gallery showed a selection of Darger's watercolours in 2005 as part of the exhibition Mixed-Up Childhood. Accompanying Darger's works to New Zealand was the American Folk Art Museum's curator, Brooke Anderson. People flocked to the gallery to hear the New York-based curator speak about the reclusive artist. Then, travelling south to Wellington to meet up with Stuart Shepherd at Vincent's, Anderson first saw the work of Martin Thompson. Her visit resulted in Thompson's inclusion in Obsessive Drawing.

Anderson explains that the motivations for the artists in this exhibition are often linked to their self-taught survival skills in contemporary society. Art making helps them "cope with regret, fear, loss or illness. It becomes a means of creative self-expression as well as a system of thinking � a way of coping with realities and of hoping for well-being."

She writes that Thompson's drawings help him negotiate the world, which he calls "a mindless distraction". His methodical technique "satiates his interest in the rational and in math, but it also tempers what he considers the irrational state of society and his discomfort with contemporary culture".

In January this year, Shepherd went to New York to deliver a talk about Thompson's work as part of the American Folk Art Museum's programme of talks, called Uncommon Artists, linked to the huge annual Outsider Art Fair. While at the fair, Shepherd met New York dealers and publishers and introduced them to Thompson's work.

Emailing excitedly from New York, Shepherd typed a hasty message: "I had to let you know that Martin Thompson is hot property in NY... I keep meeting people who are very established in the industry here who are responding to Marty's work� I think the timing just happens to be great; the Obsessive Drawing show, the Outsider Art Fair, a buoyant art market, a lot of publicity� and Marty happens to be right in the middle, with totally original and fully developed work that no one has seen before�"

So what exactly is outsider art? Who are these self-taught visionaries? What are some of the favourite works from the private collections of outsider art supporters in New Zealand?

Firstly, the terms applied to these artists � outsider, self-taught, eccentric creatives, obsessive, vernacular, folk, backyardists, raw visionaries � can be confusing. Originally, art brut was the term coined by French artist, Jean Dubuffet, to label his own collection of works by artists he described as "clinically diagnosed as insane, as well as visionaries and eccentrics living on the fringes of society".

Certainly, the development of modern psychiatry brought a new appreciation of art made by psychiatric patients. In New Zealand the most famous example of this was the drawings of Rolfe Hattaway, a patient at Avondale Mental Hospital. The artist Theo Schoon, who was working at the hospital as an orderly in the 1950s, supplied Hattaway with drawing materials, ensuring that some of his works survived. Previously, Hattaway used mud rocks to draw on the pavement. Art historian Damian Skinner explains that Hattaway's complex and exciting drawings were influential for modernist painter Gordon Walters and for Schoon himself. This was a theme Skinner drew upon for his 1997 exhibition at Lopdell House Gallery, Hattaway, Schoon, Walters: madness and modernism, for which he accessed a rare collection of 150 Hattaway drawings in conjunction with works by Walters and Schoon.

In a contemporary sense though, the term outsider art has broadened out beyond the limited definitions of the early collectors. Many began to re-examine and reject the notion of outsider by asking "outside what?" With contemporary art increasingly pushing the boundaries of diversity, a climate of appreciation for a huge variety of art outside the mainstream has developed and flourished. Today, differing labels can each have slightly different meanings but, though always hotly debated, these labels tend to reflect the myriad interests of those working in the field. This means new labels are arising all the time � a situation that can be confusing.

Tim Walker, Director of the Dowse in Lower Hutt, says, "Labels are an attempt at mapping and mostly outsider art is simply unmappable."

For now though, let's use the term outsider art. Most people agree that outsider artists are those whose art-making has arisen isolated from the mainstream art world and often from mainstream culture in general. The artists are idiosyncratic individuals, with no formal art training, who have developed their own surprising and unexpected personal visual language. As curator, artist and passionate outsider art collector, Paul Rayner, explains, outsider artists are not in time with the art world. "They don't make art as an art professional would. They just do it. They freely express unorthodox and original ideas visually that they can't express with words. That is the mystery of the outsider artist," says Rayner. Favourite pieces in his own collection include the work of Wanganui's Dave O'Neil and paintings by American Mose Tolliver. Rayner is also a great admirer of Martin Thompson's work.

Outsider artists often face pressures and challenges in society. These might be linked to socio-economic hardship, cultural differences or isolation due to mental health issues or confinement. Colin Korovin, for example, has a lot of worries. He has been working at Vincent's Art Workshop for many years and coordinator, Glen McDonald, explains. "He worries about conflict and the lack of peace in the world so he draws about themes of love, respect, kindness and peace in the world. Working obsessively with BIC Biro pens, drawing is a way he can get fears out of his head � and he certainly works at a feverish pace. We are running out of room to store the works!"

McDonald also highlights the work of Reece Tong, who started working at Vincent's about nine years ago, taking his painting incredibly seriously.

"It's what makes his world make sense," she says. A quiet man, he has set up his workspace in the Vincent's pottery studio as it is a more peaceful environment.

Picking a favourite work from his own collection of outsider artists, Stuart Shepherd immediately thinks of a painting by Tong. "His work is graphically stunning. He is an intuitive designer and it's uncanny the way he uses a sense of balance, of positive and negative spaces and the placement of shapes," he remarks.

Common to many outsider artists is the sense that they are forging order, pursuing a relentless compulsion and expressing an urgent, highly personal response to the world.

Aucklander, Andrew Blythe, is one such artist � driven, persistent and obsessive. He is an artist in residence at Toi Ora Live Arts Trust in Grey Lynn � an arts workshop that is partially funded by Auckland District Health Board and by grants from trusts like the Sky City Community Trust.

Coordinator Cath O'Brien works with artists Diana Paul, Liz Higgins, board member Gabrielangelo and others who are long-time regulars and exhibitors at the trust. She notes a lot of the other artists find Blythe inspirational. "He works extremely hard," she says.

For artist and Alleluya caf� owner, Peter Hawkesby, Blythe's works are some of his personal favourites. Hawkesby recently mounted an exhibition of his work at his Karangahape Road caf� in Auckland.

"For years now Andrew has visited the caf� and done sketches here while having a coffee. He would do drawings for the caf� staff � it was the only way for him to communicate � he wouldn't actually talk to people. I like the fact that he just goes for it with his art. Give him some pens or paint and he doesn't stop � work piles up on benchtops, under tables, everywhere."

Wellington's Art Compass is another supportive organisation that promotes gifted artists who have intellectual disabilities. They recently opened a shop at 10 Haining Street to exhibit and sell their artwork. Dunedin's Artsenta offers people within the mental health community opportunities to work in the arts.

"We are not here to rehabilitate, diagnose or offer therapy," says Artsenta's Assistant Director Jill Thompson. "We are here for the artists, for people wanting to be creative, for the joy of discovery � for people like Margaret Freeman, now in her 70s, who has been coming to Artsenta for over 20 years".

A shared link for some outsider artists is the outpouring of creative responses later in life. Sydney artist Gina Sinovich, who went to Australia as a refugee in 1956 and now has work in Australian and New Zealand art collections, began to paint in her 70s when her husband's ill health meant she was spending long, solitary hours at home as sole caregiver. Memories of tragic events in her early life in Croatia and Iraqi war imagery shown on TV became her subject matter.

In New Zealand there is the example of Mrs Teuane Tibbo, whose work was shown in a survey exhibition at Lopdell House Gallery curated by Bronwyn Lloyd in 2002. Born in Samoa in 1893, Tibbo moved to New Zealand after the Second World War but didn't begin to paint until she was 71. In the 1960s this self-taught artist's depictions of village scenes, domestic objects and home life attracted the attention of mainstream artists like Pat Hanly and Barry Lett. And Lett exhibited her work at his gallery alongside artists such as Colin McCahon.

Author Richard Wolfe, who has researched her work, says he was attracted to its no-nonsense directness, childlike vision, sense of vigour and vitality for life.

"It was like a breath of fresh air," he says.

Tim Walker, Director of the Dowse, says his own interest in outsider art is in those people who have become artists in response to trauma in their lives. He believes that through traumatic events, a reconnection is often made back to childhood interests as a way of rebuilding, healing and finding meaning again. "Outsider art can be a source of a rich and authentic visual language. It is the sense of a radical vision and a strong sense of deep visual excitement that is hard to ignore," he says.

Nominating one of his favourites from his personal collection, Walker goes back to 1985 and one of the first outsider works he purchased. It was hanging on the outside rail of the band rotunda on the Waikato Society of Arts stall during one of the Hamilton Left Bank Festivals.

"From a long way away it was arresting, unforgettable and charged with the visual energy it retains today. This is often a quality of outsider work I'm drawn to. Maybe it's a visual urgency that comes from an approach to colour and mark making that's driven by a completely different set of concerns to other art," he says. "It's like a kind of singing. For me, it's rare for a painting to generate this kind of energy. It remains one of my favourite paintings, my favourite things. I later found out that the artist, Barry McGifford, was a day patient at Tokanui and had painted a series of these small panoramic paintings of the hospital buildings."

Working in a world of their own, with their own personal motivations, many outsider artists express surprise when others recognise the quality of their work. Interest in her work certainly surprised Val Sutherland, a mother, grandmother and care-giver whose doll making caught the eye of Australian collector Peter Fay (profiled in the Spring 2005 issue of Art News), who visited Masterton's King Street Artworks in 1998. Sutherland was a helper and participant in some King Street Artworks workshop activities.

Loving the vulnerability and innocence of her doll characters, Fay bought all of them. And Sutherland's reaction? She thought he must have been totally crazy! Now, eight years later, interest in her work has grown with exhibitions in Australia, including a 2005/2006 solo exhibition touring to Wollongong City Gallery and Campbelltown Arts Centre in New South Wales.

"I took my 15-year-old daughter and seven-year-old granddaughter with me to Wollongong," she explains. "It was amazing seeing their faces when people were saying things about me and my work. They found it funny to see grandma as the focus of all this attention." A very shy, hard-working person, Sutherland creates her papier mach� dolls, using cheap materials like toilet paper and old sewing pattern paper, at the kitchen table.

"The kids usually get to name all the characters I make, which I draw from everyday life," she says. The Mayor, 2004, for example, references the former Mayor of Carterton, transsexual Georgina Beyer. Sutherland's birth place, Carterton, was almost unknown before Beyer was elected as mayor. Now, as Val says, a lot more people know about the place!

Also from small town New Zealand, Jim Dornan's body of work is looked after today by his old neighbour in Wairoa, Chris Wilson. Wilson recalls Dornan, who had spells away at Kingseat Hospital, as a man with charisma who was not afraid to be different. He lived in a faux log cabin that he built himself and produced a remarkable body of paintings and drawings, developing a personal colour theory and advocating for his "Get Well Research". Wilson remembers his art was totally controversial in Wairoa at the time. "The human brain, the organs and vascular system were consistent elements," he writes, "and they further marginalised him from the community."

When Dornan died in 1981, Wilson rescued his works from the impending bonfire when his house was cleared out. His work was exhibited at the Dowse in 2002 and was included in Paul Rayner's exhibition, The Outsiders, at the Sarjeant Gallery in 2003. It was also included in a show of outsider artists curated by Stuart Shepherd at Anna Bibby Gallery in 2005. Martin Thompson's drawings also featured in that show.

The fact that Thompson's works are entering more New Zealand collections indicates a growing audience for outsider artists. Exhibition opportunities are beginning to open up � Thompson's work was included in Snake Oil, Recent Chartwell Acquisitions at Auckland's New Gallery in 2005 and there is an ongoing commitment from Anna Bibby Gallery to show his work.

Shepherd reports from New York, "I think Martin's success, as it filters back to New Zealand, could be the trigger for a profound shift in perceptions about the value and significance of self-taught art in New Zealand".

As the artist himself quietly commented in the TV3 footage, "I'm starting to get somewhere".