Innercityartist.com home of the International Outsider Exhibition of Modern Art (ioema) Collection

Hello and welcome to the websites innercityartist.com, ioemacollection.com, emoma.art and collectoutsider.art. Here I show our collection of outsiderart collected from 1999 to 2019 from around the world. This next part might sound crazy....but although I chose all of it, I didn't buy the art.

In 99, I started a website to show the art of inner city artists I'd encountered while working in the ghetto collecting money for an insurance company. None of those artists had any money but they had made lots of art. I crafted together a little site, offered to show their art on the site online and asked for an original of their work as trade. It worked. I got art and they got exposure because Google showed the site 1 or 2 for outsider art search. I to this day don't know why.

Soon, I put a submission page on site with the same conditions. After a spell, submissions started to happen. I'd look at the art and if I wanted to show the work, I emailed a response. And got art. Over the next 20 years, art arrived here from all over the world.

In 2019, I stopped taking submissions as times had changed. Anyone, anywhere could put something online themselves and get noticed. But what a great 20 years.

I hope you enjoy looking at the art and if you're interested, I hope you learn more about the artists and maybe even reach out to them.