South-East London Artist Xavier White is exhibiting his work at Mycenae House from 3rd March – 30th April 2025.
‘Footsteps’ are a visual journey over the last decade as an outside artist. Much of his work is defined by the brain injury he sustained in a cycling accident in 1985. This journal explores the successful decade creative process and development research behind the stained glass sculptures, wall hangings, performance and installations.
After attending an adult education class in stained glass, Xavier White had begun to realise he wanted to further his understanding & capabilities in a creative field. Fate overtook, as he experienced a near fatal brain injury at 18 years old, just when he had been planning a return to education.
After years rehabilitating, upcycling and creating in an outsider artist wilderness, he finally got to realise his formal artistic education with the support of 1990’s Labour mantra of ‘education, education, education’. This provided the encouragement and study support that gave with his learning difficulties, ‘I wanted to learn how to learn, exploring what’s my style?’
Throughout the Art & Design Foundation he was required to produce sketch & visual research workbooks to ‘show his thinking’. Xavier the outsider had always had sketch book but this pulled his doodles into a more presentable approach to research for a specific purpose. This visual research continued during his BA degree in Swansea.
During his final year in 2008, a fellow student recommend he go for an autistic spectrum test. After returning to London he eventually got a referral for an Autistic Spectrum Test (AST) at the South London and Maudsley (SLaM) Hospital. The outcome was inconclusive but since returning to SLaM, he found an arts supportive umbrella. Xavier has exhibited in a number of exhibitions at SLaM, which led to being offered an artist in residence at London South Bank University (LSBU) and with Outside In. For which he has continued the visual research workbooks as part of his method.
FOOTSTEPS displays selected pages from these extensive research journey books, offering a chance for the viewer to follow and retrace emergent ideas behind projects traced across a successful decade, as imprints from a creative journey.
