Book Launch: The Toy of the Spirit by Anthony Mannix

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Garden Lounge Creative Space is delighted to host the launch of The Toy of the Spirit.

The first collection of writing to be published by Australia's greatest outsider artist, Anthony Mannix.

Join Mannix, in conversation with editor Dr Gareth Jenkins, for a discussion about the Outsider Writing collected in The Toy of the Spirit, recently published by Puncher and Wattmann.

The writing and illustrations in this publication have been drawn from artist books and journals Mannix has created over a prolific 40 years of creative production.

By turns visionary, philosophical and erotic, Mannix's creative practice, in all its varied manifestations, is an anthropological engagement with his journeys through the unconscious worlds of psychosis.

"I want to see the madnesses expounded for how else are these unborn children that one sees in the plethora of beings to be laid to earth quietly, quickly and with appropriate ceremony?"

Five years in the making, this book showcases Mannix's diverse writing practice, the humour and poetry, the diaristic reflection, the experimental narratives full of heartfelt emotion, anthological exploration, description and explanation of what he calls the 'schizophrenic trek'.

Please join us for the launch of this important new work.\

Anthony Mannix was born in 1953 in Sydney. Studying cultural anthropology at Macquarie University he felt an avenue to explore reality and unreality in a continuous book of 'subjective documentation' of text and art. For the last 30 years he has pursued this. He is widely exhibited and published.

A large selection of Mannix's creative work can be viewed in his online digital archive, called The Atomic Book.

Gareth Jenkins is a poet, artist and researcher. Gareth has presented his research on Mannix in Australia, Europe and the USA. In all these research projects Gareth has collaborated directly with Mannix.