"Remedy For the Living" – Iron-Oxide Visions on Paper by Vincent Castiglia

With such precise technique, his depiction of human musculature is nothing short of outstanding – Paul Booth / World-renowned Tattooist, Artist, Gallery Owner, Fanatical Nihilist

If the body is the temple, then the heart is the altar and the blood is the sacred flame that enlightens the shrine. Vincent is painting with holy light. – Martin Eric Ain / Musician, Celtic Frost

One can see a celebration of life in all its dimensions; life that is followed by death, and death that gives way to newness of life… a sublime truth which I believe Vincent’s work diligently seeks: the mystery of being. – Father John Wykes / Priest, Art-appreciator

The ominous truth that his art confronts, along with the exquisiteness in which it is portrayed, provides a timeless revelation into human existence. – Joe Sopkowics, Forensic Photographer

The first solo exhibition of paintings by Vincent Castiglia will open at the H.R. Giger Museum Gallery in Gruyeres, Switzerland on October 31st 2008 and run through mid 2009.

Working in the tradition of surrealism and visionary art, Castiglia states: "my paintings tend to depict iconographic forms, vital and necrotic juxtapositions, and reinterpretations of transpersonal experience."

The award-winning artist, who literally puts his life into his work, has mastered the use of his own blood as a medium.  Just as this personal, iron rich pigment holds the key to countless facts and information regarding the sustenance and perpetuation of life, Castiglia’s subjects are often "exposed like a body that has been dissected to determine the cause and manner of one’s demise," states Detroit’s Forensic Photographer, Joe Sopkowics.  As he strips away layers of flesh, muscle and bone, Castiglia confronts humanity’s innate fear of the unknown while exquisitely illustrating its losing battle with biological truths.

The H.R. Giger Museum opened in June of 1998, in Gruyeres, Switzerland. It showcases the largest collection of Giger’s work on permanent public display, encompassing his paintings, sculptures, furniture and film designs, including his work on "Alien", "Poltergeist", and "Species". The top floor of the Museum houses Giger’s private collection, which includes over 600 works of art by Salvador Dali, Ernst Fuchs, Dado, Bruno Weber, Günther Brus, Claude Sandoz, François Burland, Friedrich Kuhn, Joe Coleman, Sibylle Ruppert, Andre Lassen, among many others.

An exhibition catalogue will be printed for "Remedy For the Living" Iron-Oxide Visions on Paper. The artist will be present at the opening. Castiglia's solo exhibition at the H.R. Giger Museum Gallery will run for six months.

MUSEUM HR GIGER, Chateau St. Germain, 1663 Gruyeres

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Leo Plaw, Luke Brown and Jarah Tree will be exhibiting at Luminopolis in London. After showing their artwork in the Liminal Village at the Boom Festival, they were invited to participate in the many faceted event that is Luminopolis. Formerly know as the Synergy Project, it is an indoor festival, combining musicians, Djs, Vjs, performers, and artists from all corners of creativity, joined by various proactive NGO’s and charities with the expressed aim to make a difference.

The events gather some of the UK’s leading creative multimedia organizations joined by international NGO’s such as Oxfam, Survival, Speak, Ecoshelter, WDM, Down2Earth, Greenpeace, Campaign Against Climate Change to provide just the right mix of open hearted enjoyment and meaningful reflection for a new direction.

Luminopolis re-invented the clubbing experience by transforming it into an ‘educational’ tool, associating healthy values of sustainability and social justice to strong role models such as respected artists and performers of the entertainment industry.

The event is on Friday the 3rd at the SeOne Club, located on Weston Street under London Bridge Tube Station.

More information on the Luminopolis website: luminopolis.org

Leo Plaw is one of 50 artists featured in our first publication "Metamorphosis".

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'Surreal Exhibition,' featuring original artworks by Mike Worrall, Graeme Balchin (right), Russell Austin & Fotomoda.

7th – 31st October

Who Art Thou Gallery

Shop 111, Gosford Town Centre

Cnr. Henry Parry Drv. and William St, Gosford

NSW, Australia

Mike Worrall is one of fifty artists featured in our second publication Metamorphosis 2.

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Last Rites Gallery presents…

The 13th Hour

Jason Alexander, Carrie Anne Baade, Saturno Butto, Scott G. Brooks, Vincent Castiglia, Molly Crabapple, Jason D'Aquino, H.R. Giger, Fred Harper, Michael Hussar, Eli Livingston, John John Jesse, Kris Kuksi, Hiroshi Kumagai, Craig LaRotunda, Michael Mararian, Christian Van Minnen, Lithium Picnic, Anthony Pontius, Paul Rumsey, Martina Secundo Russo, Chet Zar (right) and more.

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 18th, 7-11pm

Show runs through November 23rd

Last Rites Gallery,

511 W 33rd St, NYC, USA

Carrie Anne Baade, Kris Kuksi and Chet Zar are featured in our first publication entitled 'Metamorphosis'.

Scott G. Brooks, H.R. Giger, Michael Hussar, and Christian Van Minnen are featured in 'Metamorphosis 2'.

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"Stretching out like one of the Buddha's great bejeweled parasols, the term Visionary Art encompasses a wide variety of styles, genres, periods and degrees of abstraction. Definitions abound, but here is my hard crystal: visionary art is art that resonates with visionary experiences, those undeniably powerful eruptions of numinous and multidimensional perception that suggest other orders of reality"

- Erik Davis, 'True Visions'

The Visionary Art Culture Creators discussion panel was presented by the Elvish Nation, Pod Collective, Elfintome and Crystal and Spore. Present at were representatives of a number of Visionary Art Culture Communities, Pod Collective (USA), Elfintome (Canada), Beinart (Australia), Zoetic Art (Galactik), Light Science (Canada), Lila (UK), Spectraleyes (Bali), Nectar Temple (USA), and Visionary Revue (France). They had gathered together to discuss and explore the present and future of the emerging visionary art culture.

Over the course of a week the Liminal Village conference and gallery was visited by many of the 25,000 festival goers from 80 countries. The Liminal Village presented 30 speakers and artists from 23 countries. The intention of this gathering was to create a mosaic message which can open up dialogues on many levels to help give momentum and generate inspiration for visionary art and culture.

In a world of rapidly dissolving borders and boundaries, the separation between the worlds of the imaginal and the worlds of the material are deepening their weave. With access to the knowledge and history of all cultures of the world, what was once separated by distance and language, is now being melded together. We now have access to the history of art from all different artistic traditions. The modern artist is steeped in influences from all artistic genres and art eras.

Fueled by the worldwideweb and vast evolutions in the quality of communications technologies, artists everywhere are being empowered to share their work with an increasingly global audience. Nodes, collectives, forums and galleries are emerging to represent countries, continents and even newly globalized art culture movements.

Advances in communications technology means artists who at one time were limited to representing in their own country can now share their work globally. In this way living artistic traditions all over the earth are influencing and being influenced by each other simultaneously. A global art culture is getting connected and with it come undreamed of potentials for collaborative artistic evolution.

Participants in the Visionary Art Culture Creators discussion panel were:

CONCEPT STEWARD AND MC : Delvin Solkinson

DJ : Naasko Wripple

VJ : Sijay James

ART PANEL : Luke Brown, Laurence Caruana, Andrew Jones, Leo Plaw, Carey Thompson,  and Jen Zariat.

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You can see the intricate detail of Laurie Lipton's pencil drawings at her first solo show in Los Angeles, "Day of the Dead."

The show runs from October 11 until November 1 at CoproNason Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.

The opening reception is on Saturday October 11, from 8.00 until 11.30pm.

CoproNason Gallery

2525 Michigan Avenue

Santa Monica, CA

Laurie Lipton is one of 50 Artists featured in our first publication entitled 'Metamorphosis'.

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GALERIE 10 invites you to a gallery tour "Galerienrundgang" in Vienna on Thursday, 18 September 2008 from 5pm to 10pm.

Peter Gric, NoMe Edonna, Amanda Sage and Wessi will paint in the gallery.

Further works from Rudolf Hausner, Ernst Fuchs, Maitre Leherb, Hundertwasser will be exhibited.

Michael Scheer, GALERIE 10, Getreidemarkt 10, 3. Floor (Lift available), 1010 Wien, Austria

GALERIE 10 is open every Monday and Friday from 10am – 6pm

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Wormwood Studio

Presents

Simple Woodland Creatures

Simple Woodland Creatures is the inaugural exhibition from Wormwood Studio and a part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2008.

The exhibition will be a collection of old and new works from artists Kim Evans, Rhiannon Mowat and Dave, as well as literary creations from Craig Mowat. A rare and inspiring opportunity to meet the artists and view this fantastic collection of Visionary and Surreal works.

Venue: Wormwood Studio, 8 King Street, St Kilda East, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Season Dates: 27/09/2008 – 11/10/2008*

Times/Notes: Open from 10am till 3pm, excluding Sundays Mondays and Tuesdays

*Wormwood Studio will be open by appointment only, following the above dates.

Kim Evans is one of 50 Artists featured in our first publication entitled 'Metamorphosis'.

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Solo exhibition of the paintings of David Dalla Venezia

Galleria Davico, Torino

September 12 – October 11

The opening is on September 12 2008 at 6pm

Galleria Davico

30, galleria Subalpina

Torino 10123, Italy

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Meta Gallery is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition, “Mapmakers: Visions in Contemporary Art”, a group exhibition featuring 15 artists who work with a common visual language, depicting a vision of the planet, of humanity and of the world unique in contemporary art today. The exhibition is entitled “Mapmakers” simply because the artists in this show are mapmakers. Charting unknown realms of the subconscious and various heightened states of perception, these works are meant as depictions of journeys into new and unexplored realms of consciousness. As Erik Davis wrote in his essay for the catalogue which accompanies the exhibition, “…it is important to consider that these works are, in some ways, documents of experience.” These 15 artists have embarked on a journey to visually define the relationship between rational, cognitive thought and the awe-inspiring, fantastic dream world of the subconscious, inviting the viewer to experience the states of awareness which informed the works of art in the first place.

Mapmakers features works by Cathie Bleck (Cleveland, OH), Luke Brown (Bali, IN), Raul Casillas (Vancouver, BC), Dean Chamberlain (Venice, CA), Alex Grey (Brooklyn, NY), Allyson Grey (Brooklyn, NY), Mark Henson (Upper Lake, CA), Martina Hoffmann (Boulder, CO), Andrew Jones (San Francisco, CA), Kris Kuksi (Hayes, KS), Paul Laffoley (Boston, MA), Mars-1 (San Francisco, CA), Ben Tour (Vancouver, BC), Robert Venosa (Boulder, CO), and Oliver Vernon (Brooklyn, NY).

Located in Toronto’s historic Distillery District, Meta Gallery was founded by Jody Polishchuk with the mandate to use the space as the first forum of its kind, dedicated to exhibiting and documenting this emerging group of innovative artists. Jody has been involved with this art movement in various capacities, devoted to evolving the careers of these artists (as well as others) and sharing their work with the world.

The exhibition will be on view from September 5, (opening reception 7 – 11pm) to October 12, 2008. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11-6, and Sunday 12-5.

Meta Gallery

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It was reported that Wolfgang Grasse died in Penguin Tasmania on or about 17 August 2008.

Born in 1930, he survived the horrors of the Second World War and then imprisonment in East Germany for a political crime.

ABC Stateline has an interview with Wolfgang Grasse where he talks about these things and thoughts on Fantastic Art.

"My grandfather painted realist paintings…He was particularly strict with me. He warned me from a young age of the brainwashing effects and influence of art teachers of the time." Wolfgang Grasse.

"My influences are Matthias Grunewald, Altdorfer, Peter Bruegel, Bosch, Crivelli, Shongauer, Hans Baldung Gruen, Fanius Gugel, Albrecht Durer, Mantegna, Hans Memling, and also the great book illustrator Professor Alfred Roloff.I like very much the artists of the Vienna School, but my art goes in different ways." Wolfgang Grasse.

"We should respect dreams as much as we respect reality and sometimes our dreams are more powerful than reality." Wolfgang Grasse.

May he rest in peace.

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News from Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule:

'Conjunctio' A Graphic Grimmoire by Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule, published by Fulgur Limited (UK). The Book Conjunctio presents mirrored pairs of Sacred Twins and Divine Lovers from various cultural pantheons coupled on facing pages. They are aligned in such a way that when the pages are turned the figures are United in holy conjunction by the alchemical reader. Different reflective relationships – alchymic opposites and complementaries – are explored b e t w e e n the pages.

UK launch: Treadwells Esoteric Bookshop, London 19th Sept.

Europe launch: Safara Esoteric Bookshop, Rome 24th Sept

US launch: Esozone Festival, Portland Oregon Oct 11th

Each launch will include or be closely followed by ritual musickal-theatrickal performances by Orryelle, and some of the original artwork from the Grimmoire will also be exhibited…

See the site of the publishers Fulgur Limited for more information.

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