Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and NASA's "Perpetual Ocean"

Vincent van Gogh was certainly a visionary impressionistic painter, and definitely one who continues to inspire many contemporary artists of various styles today. His swirling "Starry Night" skies appear very similar to the digital images produced by this NASA/MIT/JPL computational model ECCO2, which created a computer visualization that shows the world's ocean surface currents from June 2005 through December 2007. This visualization is called "Perpetual Ocean", and was made in the Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, and what it shows is a "high resolution model of the global ocean and sea-ice". 


Additionally, this computer visualization was submitted to the SIGGRAPH 2011 Computer Animation Festival, but it wasn't selected by the jury.

To see this computer visualization please click the link below:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003800/a003827/ 

Sacred Visions: Pablo Amaringo and Belkis Ayon Manso

The complex and detailed works of the late Pablo Amaringo and Belkis Ayon Manso are extraordinarily beautiful and emotional. Their art work is deeply rooted in their own personal experiences in religious ceremonies, and virtually all of their work is inspired by their deep spirituality. Without their spirituality, there would be no need for them to create art. The two artists worked in different media: the shaman Amaringo worked his ayahuasca-induced visions into paintings, and the santera Ayon Manso portrayed scenes of Santeria ceremonies and the Abakua society through the lost technique of collography and in lithographic prints.

The stunning and seething images found in Amaringo's work are reminiscent of the nierikate yarn paintings of the Huichol shamans of Mexico, such as the works of Jose Benitez Sanchez. The influence of these shamanic artists' chosen spiritual sacraments, which were ayahuasca and peyote respectively, is very evident in the use of vibrant colors and highly fantastical images.

The environments of Ayon Manso's work, with their rich ebonies and stark ivories, is reminiscent of film stills from the 1964 movie Soy Cuba. Although her collographs are very dark and appear to be captured images from a secret Abakua ceremony, the film has several scenes where characters are praying to Santeria gods; in city scenes, the film features characters living in the same Havana where Ayon Manso was born and raised. Soy Cuba is quite different in theme than her work, as this film was made by Soviet filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov, and it captures the essence of Cuba before Castro. This film has also been held in high esteem with such American film gods as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, for its visionary film style. Also, to note, the famous pool party scene in Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 movie Boogie Nights pays homage to the style in which a rooftop party scene was shot in Soy Cuba.

In many of their works, the artist is represented as an onlooker in their works, however Amaringo's hallucinatory environments are exceedingly colorful and vibrant, whereas Ayon Manso's scenes of secret ceremonies are swathed in a spectrum of grays and ebonies. Although much of their work is deeply personal, both artists' works have a similar dreamlike presence of the supremely powerful and sacred, that all viewers can relate to. There is much to be explored in the lithographic technique of callography that Ayon Manso specialized in as it is a dying technique, and the mestizo culture of Amaringo also should be respected and preserved as it too is slowly dying. Amaringo recently died in 2009 at 71 after a long battle with illness, but in 1999 Ayon Manso unfortunately ended her life at the age of 32.

--Pablo Amaringo:
http://www.ayahuascavisions.com/pablo-amaringo-paintings-1.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3716773/Ayahuasca-Visions-by-Shaman-Pablo-Amaringo


--Huichol art:
http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/190-mexico-s-huichol-resource-page-their-culture-symbolism-art 
--Huichol shamanism video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtC1hBexPAI 


--Belkis Ayon Manso, the first is a video of her process to make a collographic print:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAdGFCxiL9A 
http://strawberige.blogspot.com/2011/03/belkis-ayon-manso.html
http://www.csupomona.edu/~kellogg_gallery/critics/ayon.html
http://www.csupomona.edu/~kellogg_gallery/critics/ayon2.html


--Soy Cuba film scenes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvwLZOpxAFQ&feature=related 
*Rooftop party scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BhMGrdA2Ag&feature=related  
--Boogie Nights pool scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCrGpT84G9Y&feature=related 

Masters of Manipulation: Pipilotti Rist and Erik Madigan Heck

Swiss visual artist Pipilotti Rist's work is often featured as video projections in installation shows, and one of her most inspiring works is I Want to See How You See (2003), which thoroughly blurs the line between everyday life and hallucinogenic fantasies. One of her most recent projects is from 2011, and titled Administrating Eternity which features two fixed and two moving projections of sheep, who are colored similarly to images captured on Kodak Aerochrome infrared film, which is a false color reversal film still used today by contemporary photographers Richard Mosse and UNLV MFA alum Sam Davis; infrared film is also used to capture images of aerial landscapes and vegetation growth. Much of Rist's work focuses on exploring female sexuality, identity, and reality, all captured through her innovative and unusual camera angles and color distortions.
--To read about Rist's provocative and interesting work, please peruse this article by Adrian Searle:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/sep/26/pipilotti-rist-hayward-gallery-review
--To watch I Want to See How You See:
http://www.lumeneclipse.com/gallery/04/rist/index.html
Richard Mosse: http://www.richardmosse.com/photography.php
Sam Davis: http://www.samdavisart.com/#p=-1&a=0&at=0

Like Rist, New York-based fashion photographer Erik Madigan Heck pushes colors to their extremes in order to present a surrealist environment that appears to be simultaneously both delirious and poignant. Much of his work is for colorful fashion houses Mary Katrantzou, Etro, Kenzo and Ann Demeulemeester; however, even the New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera have called on the artist to capture the on-stage magic of their performers. Please follow the links to view his photographic works:
--Erik Madigan Heck's portfolio:
http://www.maisondesprit.com/selectedworks.php
http://www.maisondesprit.com/archives.php?id=island_og_blar_ogilt
http://www.maisondesprit.com/archives.php?id=mary_katrantzou_the_surrealist_ideal

Under the microscope: through the medical "looking-glass"...

Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson is a former photojournalist turned visionary of medical photography. He is most famous for his series featured in his book A Child is Born, which features photography of the fetal development of the human being from the moment of conception to birth. Nilsson was also a contracted photographer for Life magazine, and during these years (1965-1972) he photographed microscopic views of the human body and brain, particularly the heart and focusing on heart attacks. His other scientific photographs can also be viewed on his website portfolio, under the titles Close to Nature and The Human Body, and many of these apparently macroscopic images of microscopic cells and were captured using very specialized, technical equipment.

To view Mr. Nilsson's website:

http://www.lennartnilsson.com/home.html#

Today, Mr. Nilsson's still work continues to inspire international photographers and scientists to capture images and videos of microscope slides, and some of these images are entered into the annual Olympus Bioscapes digital imaging competition. The work presented in this competition is stunning; some cellular images are incredibly psychedelic, especially those of stained zoological specimens and fluorescent cultures. Nature will never cease to leave us awestruck and inspired...
http://www.olympusbioscapes.com/gallery/2011/
http://www.olympusbioscapes.com/

Beyond Cirque: Otherworldly circus and performance art

Cirque du Soleil is world renowned for the ingenuity, incredible artistry and synergy of the creators and artists. However, recently, former Cirque artists and other acrobats from the world over have made names for themselves as increasingly more creative rivals of Cirque du Soleil (CdS).

One of the most outstanding rivals of CdS is Ruslan Ganeev, who is a Moscow Circus School alum and mind-blowing performance art/music designer. He has created his own brand of choreography, costume design and circus art, and he has created entire acts, costumes and music tracks for his original shows such as Archetypes and I-Show 5 Continents. His shows feature exquisite aerialists and equilibrists who perform as various personalities in a very theatrical circus stage environment, and who are dressed in often very detailed and unusual fashions also designed by Ganeev. To see some of Ganeev's work, please follow the links posted below:

Archetypes: http://archetypes.tv/common/index.html
---"Diva"  http://archetypes.tv/on_diva/video.html
---"Fury" http://archetypes.tv/on_fury/video.html

Kansas City-based performance art and aerial dance company, Quixotic Fusion, also features beautiful circus choreography and stunning visuals in some of their USA based shows, take Esoterra for example.
The company "seeks to unite artists of all media to produce new forms of expression". Some of their most amazing artists are classically trained ballerinas Francoise Voranger and Jillian St. Germaine, who like the prima ballerinas Guillem and Vishneva of my previous post, have gone on to form their own equally poignant works, and the latter have also created their own performance group, the Hybrid Movement Company.
To see more of Quixotic Fusion, please click the links below:
http://www.quixoticfusion.com/media
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGMubLe5eWs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1er0lATJI

The Hybrid Movement Company: http://vimeo.com/hybridmovementco

Les 7 doigts de la main is another circus arts performance troupe that was founded in 2002 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, by 7 directors who sought to expand their creative horizons from being artists on the stage into directors, writers and choreographers. 5 of the 7 founders performed for years with Cirque du Soleil, and they have created 8 full stage productions to date.

http://7doigts.com/en/the-company
http://7doigts.com/en/shows
http://www.youtube.com/user/doigts?feature=watch

The visual art world continues to inspire choreographers and dancers

The modern dance world is becoming progressively more experimental, as lighting design and technology advances and enhances designers', choreographers' and dancers' abilities to create powerfully emotional and moving works. Several artists and dancers continue to push the limits of their minds and bodies, such as choreographers Martha Clarke and Russell Maliphant, and dancers Sylvie Guillem and Diana Vishneva.

Martha Clarke, is an American avant garde choreographer and director who was so inspired by Hieronymous Bosch, that in 1984 she created an original work that pushed the boundaries of theatre, music, dance, and aerial dance (and flying). This work was based on Bosch's famous triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights, which is symbolic of the evil of life's temptations. This work was re-presented in 2007, to open the 30th American Dance Festival, and was again presented in a re-imagined version to audiences in an off-Broadway production from November 2008 through April 2009. Paintings are very influential to the choreographer, and her other works are also inspired by the visual arts. To view a short video of her work inspired by Bosch, please click on the link below.

Martha Clarke's The Garden of Earthly Delights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPyLZA53YmE

Sylvie Guillem and Diana Vishneva are two world class professional classical ballerinas who act as muses for choreographers like Russell Maliphant, helping them to visualize and explore their creativity through prescribed movement. Sylvie was recently featured in Maliphant's Eonnagata, which is based on the life of the spy the Chevalier d'Eon, who was possibly the first transvestite spy who dressed as a woman to further his duties in spying for Louis XV, doing so until the day he died. The director was Robert Lepage, and the costume designer was non other than the late incomparable visionary, Alexander McQueen. Much of the choreography is enhanced by stunning and at times confrontational lighting designs, and some of which is clearly inspired by the Japanese dance movement Butoh. Butoh is a performance movement that has no set style, and allows for a variety of diverse images and environments to be created through movement. Butoh first appeared after WW2, as a rejection of the West's modern dance and also of Japan's famous Noh theater. To see more of Sylvie Guillem and an art video based on Butoh dance, please click the links below.

Sylvie Guillem in "Eonnagata"choreographed by Russell Maliphant, directed by Robert LePage with costume designs by Alexander McQueen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyVJUS_YT1k 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdjAbhZi-QU 

Alexander Mc Queen's retrospective tribute show, "Savage Beauty", from the Met:
http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/video/ 

Butoh art video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kbdgFfog2U

Diana Vishneva is the prima ballerina for the Kirov, and she worked with Moses Pendelton on the choreographic piece F.L.O.W.. Pendelton is a dancer, choreographer and artistic director of MOMIX, which he formed in 1981. His works often feature acrobatics and dance poses that appear to be moving figurative sculptures. Please click the links below to see more of his work with Ms. Vishneva, as the first is a slide show of pictures from the work, Beauty in Motion: F.L.O.W (For the Love of Women):

Diana Vishneva in Moses Pendelton's F.L.O.W.:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/02/22/arts/20080223_DIANA_SLIDESHOW_index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h2fdZ6XpR8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEVWyOI-N4Y

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/arts/dance/23beau.html

If Klimt had an Iwata airbrush and Temptu body paint...

The fusion of airbrushing and body painting has been realized as a true art by two incredibly talented young artists, Ragen Mendenhall and Adam Tenenbaum.

Ragen is a Las Vegas local, who works in an Art Nouveau style with a definite Realist proficiency, and her body painting are similar to the works of Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha, with some apparent influences from the exceptional visionary artists Robert Venosa and Alex Grey.

Adam Tenenbaum who primarily works for Temptu Pro and the performance troupe Zen Arts LA, has a more industrial and aboriginal touch that contrast with Ragen's gilded ethereal goddesses, but his technique of layering creates incredible depth and dimension. Adam's work is darker, at times even appearing confrontational and sinister like a scene from a Michael Hussar painting, and other time with his subjects (fire dancers, aerialists and models) embellished like divine shamanic figures from the Tassili Cave murals.

Both Ragen and Adam are exceptional artists, and the fact that their art is literally worn for a few hours and then washed away makes their work even more precious.


To explore their amazing body art, please click the links below:
Ragen Mendenhall: 
http://www.ragensart.com/bodypainting/bodypainting.html 
Ragen's Possible Inspirations---
Gustav Klimt: 
http://www.klimt.com/ 
Alphonse Mucha: 
http://www.muchafoundation.org/MGalleries.aspx 
Alex Grey:
http://www.alexgrey.com/ 
Robert Venosa:
http://www.venosa.com/catalog.html 


Adam Tenenbaum: 
http://www.overlayair.com/ 
Adam's Possible Inspirations---
Tassili Cave Murals:
http://www.cvsanten.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&Itemid=77&limitstart=5 
Michael Hussar: 
http://www.michaelhussar.biz/pages/pretty_pink_spade_pg.html 
Zen Arts LA: 
http://www.zenartsla.com/ 

Transcending Reality: the Photomontages of Jerry Uelsmann

Visionary photographer Jerry Uelsmann was born in 1934 in Detroit. His poetic and dream-like photo montages are visually stunning and the layers and textures he creates can even be overwhelming. Mr. Uelsmann's work is unlike most photography, which generally seeks to depict concrete details. His work depicts interpretive scenes that are otherworldly, and the techniques and approaches he uses to achieve his finished works are incredibly detailed and skilled. He is truly a master of photography. His compositions are remarkably different than those of any photographer, past or present.

To view more of Jerry Uelsmann's amazing work,
please visit his website at:
http://www.uelsmann.net/


To see more artwork that is similar to Uelsmann's:
http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/slideshow/digital-darkroom-print-gallery 

Beyond a Temple for All Spiritual Traditions: The Skywheel Project, an Interdenominational Prayer Wheel Satellite

In my last post, I briefly discussed the temples created by Mati Klarwein, Alex Grey and Oberto Airaudi, which were designed with the purpose to unite humanity through meditation and art, in order to promote world peace with respect to all spiritual traditions. Each living being on our fragile Earth has a place in the Universe. Through art, spirituality and self-expression, mankind realizes a sense of the Sacred. Self-realization and self-expression helps each one of us to connect ourselves to that which is greater than us. By acting compassionately and by caring for ourselves, others and the world, we humans can and must be stewards of the Earth and of the Universe.


In 2008, conceputal installation artists Kim Garrison-Means and Steve Radosevich, known collectively as the United Catalysts, embarked upon conceptualizing and building the world's first prayer wheel satellite, which will have an sun synchronous orbit with a lifespan of 1,000 years. Their creation is known as the Skywheel Project, and is described by their Mission Statement: "The Skywheel Satellite is inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Wheel, a meditational tool used to focus intentions of compassion and healing for all sentient beings...filled with sacred text representing blessings from every spiritual tradition on the planet, it will serve as a beacon of light, a navigational aid for the heart of humanity. As the Skywheel satellite orbits our home for the next millennia, it will serve both as a symbol for, and a confirmation of that which is greater than us." The artists are currently accepting submissions for sacred text and symobls from all the world's spiritual traditions, in any form of verbal and visual communication. 


In Garrison-Means' and Radosevich's statement, the Skywheel Project satellite "will create a focus for our simplest, our most profound, and our most ancient dream: of creating a better world for ourselves, for those we hold in our hearts and in our prayers, and for our planet as a whole; a world that resides in peace, harmony, and mutual celebration of its beautiful, unparalleled diversity."


To view artwork by the United Catalysts, please visit their website: 
 (both artists are also UNLV MFA-graduates)
http://www.unitedcatalysts.net/artists.htm 
http://www.unitedcatalysts.net/projects.htm

To read more about the Skywheel Project, please go to: http://skywheel.org/index.html 
To follow their Blog: http://skywheelproject.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html 

The Influence of Mati Klarwein -- A Visionary with a Psychedelic and Surrealist Style

Music and art have a very profound influence on the human soul, and are two forms of art that are very spiritual and sacred, as they are deeply rooted in our primordial past as humans. Mati Klarwein was a modern visionary artist, who passed away only ten years ago, and his influence is still strongly evident in the creations of contemporary visionaries.

Mati Klarwein (1932-2002) was a German-born artist of Jewish-Polish descent, who spent his childhood in Palestine (to escape Nazi Germany), and who began his formal art studies in Paris in 1948. In Paris, Mati befriended the surrealist Salvador Dali and became a student of the fantasic realist Ernst Fuchs. Fuchs taught Klarwein to paint in a way that had a huge impact on his painting style, and Klarwen credited this as the reason that he sold all of his paintings after he learned these techniques. Ernst Fuchs has also inspired contemporary visionary artists such as A. Andrew Gonzales and Alex Grey.

Klarwein is best known for his album art that he created for such visionary musicians as Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana. Klarwein’s work on Santana’s Abraxas album and Davis’ Bitches’ Brew and Live Evil albums were painted with a very psychedelic and surrealist style, which became Mati’s trademark. Klarwein, in my opinion, is the only artist who could have created such perfectly tailored album art for Bitches’ Brew, which was an album (not unlike Klarwein’s art) that provoked a lot of controversy and harsh criticism. Bitches’ Brew is a masterpiece of Davis’ which captures the musical genius’ evolution on both personal and musical levels, during a tumultuous and transformative time in American history. The album reflects Davis’ enigmatic personality, and in Carlos Santana’s words, he was “the musical shaman”. Davis’ friendship with Jimi Hendrix and his listening to the music of Sly Stone and James Brown were also some outside influences that inspired Davis’ musical approach on the album. Klarwein was also friends with Santana and Hendrix, and their friendships equally influenced his artwork, for personal endeavors and for album commissions.

During the same time, the Klarwein completed his large-scale project to create and construct a cubic temple of all the world’s religions, which he called The Aleph Sanctuary. In side the temple, were 68 layered paintings of oil and tempera on primed canvas. The artist was eventually forced to demolish the temple. However, according to Klarwein’s homepage, The Aleph Sanctuary was reconstructed “in 1992 using aluminum structures to hold Plexiglas reproductions lit by rows of fluorescent tubes”, and was featured in 2007 touring exhibition that was organized by the Tate Modern, called "Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era”.

The influence of Klarwein’s Sanctuary inspired other visionaries to create their own temples and meditation halls filled with their painstakingly beautiful and psychedelic art. In 1978, a spiritual leader by the name of Oberto Airaudi had a vision to build sacred temples inside of a mountain 30-miles outside of Turin, Italy, where he built The Damanhur Temples of Humankind. The Temples feature stained glass, highly detailed mosaics and enormous murals which celebrate all sacred traditions and universal world spirituality.The architecture of the Temples is also influenced by the architecture of Antonio Gaudi. Another set of meditation rooms was created by contemporary visionary artist Alex Grey, whose work is quite obviously inspired by Klarwein’s artwork. Grey's temple is equally as mesmerizing and mind-blowingly beautiful, and is called the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. On Grey’s homepage, he describes it as a “sanctuary for seeing ourselves, the world, and our cosmos as reflections of the Divine”.

If you would like to view and hear more of the art work of the visionaries mentioned please visit the following pages:

Mati Klarwein:

http://www.matiklarweinart.com/ 

http://www.matiklarweinart.com/artworkgallery.php?category=Aleph%20Sanctuary 

Ernst Fuchs:

http://www.ernstfuchs-gallery.com/original1ee.html   

Miles Davis’ Bitches’ Brew:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSQZgAIt0_E&feature=related 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA92u7gOSWQ 

Jimi Hendrix, “Pali Gap”, from Rainbow Bridge Concert 1970:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqc1_RQHOKM 

Santana, from Abraxas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfQK4eihCIs 

Temples of Damanhur:

http://www.thetemples.org/tour/ 


Antonio Gaudi:
http://www.gaudi2002.bcn.es/english/en_imgs/index.htm 

Alex Grey’s Chapel of Sacred Mirrors:

http://cosm.org/about.htm 

 A. Andrew Gonzalez:

http://www.sublimatrix.com/html/gallery.html 

What is Visionary Art anyways?

This blog is about Visionary Art and the artists who make it, both past and present. I am writing this first post on my blog, which is part of Professor Swenson's Art 485: Contemporary Artists in Context, at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

So, what is Visionary Art, anyways?
Visionary art is sometimes mistaken or mislabeled as Folk Art, which is an art of the people, that is passed from generation to generation through an identifable cultural tradition and is made following those specific stylistic traditions. For example Amish-made furniture, the famous San Idelfonso black pottery of New Mexico, and Haitian metal wall sculptures cut from discarded steel drums are all some types of Folk Art.

However, Visionary Art is, according to the mission statement of the American Visionary Art Museum: "Visionary art as defined for the purposes of the American Visionary Art Museum refers to art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself." http://www.avam.org/stuff-everyone-asks/what-is-visionary-art.shtml

In other words, Visionary Artists experiment, invent, and follow their intuitions, visions and inspiration, and they use their own individual soul as their guide. They do not follow culturally-specified art-making rules or style templates. They are spontaneous and inventive creators of their art, which can be anything from a two dimensional painting, an inspiring aerial acrobatic composition, an interactive fashion show, or an experimental and improvisational musical score. Visionary artists create works that are transformative, that shift paradigms, and even suggest a transcendance of reality, such that their art works can even be described as possessing restorative properties or shamanistic dimensions.

This blog will be dedicated to writing about Visionary Artists of the Visual and Performing Arts.My next posts will focus on artists of the past and present, and from various backgrounds and media.