Take it off the wall. Put it in the streets. Put it where people are, and put it in places of silence. Give it to the church, give it to politicians.

“Art needs to say something in order to be interesting,” says Eddie Langlois, a theater artist and sculptor responsible for mixing high art, low art, lube and monkey wrenches at last year’s “Joe’s Garage” at Kruzcek’s Garage in Newmarket.

That notion doesn’t sit well in a world that separates classically trained artists from so-called outsider artists. Beyond economics and training, there’s an inner voice that keeps artists on the traditional path as well. 

“Oh, I’ve met artists who make a point of staying away from that. They’re artists. They keep their art away from that, purposely. That has nothing to do with the creative process for them. There’s no place for it in their vision. … I did think (politics) was sort of off limits for a long time,” says painter Gordon Carlisle. “Bless the people who did it, but it wasn’t me.”

But what happens when they do, when something snaps and an artist says, I just can’t not do this anymore?

“Somewhere along the way I got hit over the head with the idea that the time for subtlety had passed,” says photographer Tim Gaudreau of his transition from aesthetically-based environmental photographer to eco-activist. “We have these crises and it’s not enough to just deal with them in a subtle manner. We have to stand up and make our voices heard and really present these issues for discussion.”

At a time when it’s increasingly divisive to express any opinion, we talked with five Seacoast artists well-known for practicing the art of dissent. A sense of populism pervades their work, as do notions of accessibility. At the same time, their art works toward high art’s traditional aims as a vehicle to express the human condition, incite emotion and offer transcendence. They explain why they do it, how they got there, and why they’ll do it again.

Gordon Carlisle

A figurative painter who’d trained as a printmaker and had made a living as a portrait artist, Gordon Carlisle’s life took an unexpected turn when he began doing mural work with his friends Cary Wendell and Steven Lee in the mid-1980s.

“I think that’s what really got to work on me over the years, is our continued political discussion as we were painting churches, talking about abortion or whatever we were talking about, outrage of one sort or another and how that seemed to be something that we all wished we could somehow infuse into our art. I think we all kind of played around with that a little bit, and I continue to.”

He recognizes that not every artist finds room for this in his vision.

“It’s been hard to give myself permission to do it. I really didn’t do this as a child or in high school or even in college. I did think it was sort of off limits for a long time. Bless the people who did it, but it wasn’t me. Art, to me, was a more conservative thing, I think a more Victorian thing maybe or something. It’s just, it’s non ironic. It’s denying the 20th century, going back earlier and saying that’s kind of the base of art, there. It’s a safe refuge from whatever’s happening in the world.

“For me, I reached a real frustration with that, feeling like that’s as far as I could go with that. I can’t rest on that any longer. I have to say things to bring my art alive and more relevant to me. Otherwise I might as well be living in the 19th century.” 

Things crystallized in 1998 when Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts hired him to create a mural for their headquarters. “I was there already, politically, that wasn’t the question, but being hired to capture the history of that organization since 1916 in one piece of art really got me going.” He sat in a room and brainstormed with 12 women from the staff. “And we had page after page after page of things that they thought about when they thought of the organization. This incident. This person. This confrontation. ‘We can’t do the mural without some indication of the troubles we had at the front door.’ People being dragged away. This kind of stuff. I thought, this is great! This is what I want to do! I’m so there.”

He continues working on signs and murals for a living, but his political body grows as well. “They happen erratically. When things reach a boiling point,” Carlisle says.

Among his stacks are wall hangings in various mediums with names such as “Family Values,” “Spirit of America” and “Subversion: My Dream of the Albacore.” His “Petroleum Patriotism” is a black quilted flag superimposed with a silhouette of the U.S.A. in yellow cloth woven like ribbons.
“I know full well that there’s no market for this stuff. That’s not the motivation at all. It’s just something that needs to be expressed. And then it’s the question of, have I the time to do it? And if I can slide it in, I do.”