Publisher's Synopsis
Set in the confines of small-town South Africa, this biography of Helen Martins tells the story of the artist's struggle to transform her world. The author considers what it was that drove Martins to live a life both startling in its hopefulness and tragic in its loneliness. In doing so, she seeks to restore weight and dignity to this frequently misunderstood woman. The interviews, letters and photographs that describe the artist's search for personal identity also document the metamorphosis of an ordinary Karoo house into the Owl House - one of South Africa's foremost examples of Outsider art - and place Martins in the context of other outsider artists.
