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Nuke Sleepwalker - Dennis Konstantin

After attending the exhibition openings for my recent exhibitions at Galerie III in Barmstedt, I stopped off in Hamburg to visit fellow visionary artist, Dennis Konstantin. I had become aware of Dennis some years ago on the internet while previously living in Berlin. But I never made it to Hamburg to visit him. It was at the Galerie III exhibition that we finally met face to face. He has his studio in the Karolinenviertel which neighbors the famous Schanzenviertel in St. Pauli, Hamburg. The neighborhood is just like a slice of Berlin’s Kruezberg where I had previously lived, so it felt very familiar. However when Dennis and I went for a jaunt through this “alternative” quarter, I realized very quickly how small it all was, and just how lucky we are in Berlin to have so much.

While Hamburg has Altbau houses (late 19th to early 20th century) also, they don’t seem to share the same spacious layouts the Berlin houses do, being more akin to those in Vienna. Berlin’s also have large inner courtyards that the others lack. Dennis lives and works in one of these old houses.

While in his studio I looked out through the window across the small lane to the next house, and exactly opposite his studio was another artist working in her studio. So while Dennis may live alone, at least he does not have the feeling he works alone.

The walls of his apartment are crowded with his original artwork. It is a true feast for the eyes. Even after visiting Dennis two times, there is still much to look at. It is truly fascinating to get up close to his works, as the usual story goes, what you see on the computer screen, in no way can convey how the artwork actually is. His works are very energetic, luminous and otherworldly. Exactly my taste. It was enthralling to look over his should as he worked. His style differs to mine, but the technique is similar, working with underpainting and transparent oil glazes which achieve a luminosity not possible with mixing paint on the palette. A technique which is well adapted to the content of our work.

The themes of our artwork resonate together. We are both interested in the living dynamic of energy that manifests everything around us, our perception of it and ultimately how our consciousness relates to it. This is why we and other artists generally refer to our artwork as Visionary.

Morphogenisis - Dennis Konstantin

Dennis allows the play of chance to inspire the direction of the painting. At times he will allow the paint to have its way creating its own shapes which then inspire him further. He also uses deft fluid brush strokes to create harmonious patterns that vivify his works with a vital dynamic that glows in his twilight worlds.

He originally studied and graduated as an architect, but chose to be “starving in my own studio than in someone’s office”. In the Autumn of 2003 and 2007 he spent time with Ernst Fuchs learning much from him. He also assisted Fuchs on his Apocalypse chapel in Klagenfurt, Austria.

While in his studio we also swapped stories and various bits of information about the Fantastic Visionary network of arts. We also discussed the idea of uniting forces and organizing a group show. There is much happening on the West Coast of America and we both feel something needs to happen here. For now, it is a matter of watch this space. If any one should have suggestions for places to exhibit, please let us know.

As is often when I visit friends in theirs studios, I get itchy fingers and also want to be working away. Visiting Dennis was no exception. It is very inspirational visiting him. And so it came time for me to depart to my own studio in Berlin.

Dennis’ website: denniskonstantin.com

A world away in the Australian bush circa 1997 was a small outdoor electronic music festival called Dragon Flight. At this festival were various people from the Brisbane electronic music scene. In this time I had started with video projections. My friends Tam and Siavash aka Memory Loss were also playing there. These are a few short clips of that party overlayed with some of their music. Ah, nostelgia.

My friend Satoshi Sakamoto was recently interviewed on Lila.org by Daniel Mirante. It is a good example of Satoshi’s complex philosophies and his unique perspectives. Satoshi also mentions our meeting this year in Kyoto for the International Fantastic Art exhibition.

The complete interview can be read on http://lila.info/art/interviews/satoshi-sakamoto-forms-from-the-void.html

After spending time in the Liminal Village at the Boom Festival where he was exhibiting, Robert Venosa made his way over to Vienna. Here he paid a visit to my friend Peter Gric, who he sat down with and discussed his artwork and a little about Fantastic and Visionary art movement.

The video of that meeting of two great artists was only recently made available on the internet.

Luminiopolis - London October 2008

This week I return to London to exhibit my artwork art at Luminopolis with Jarah Tree and Luke Brown. Alex Lee who works with the event had seen my artwork in the Liminal Village at the Boom Festival and invited me along to Luminopolis.

Its a funny twist of events as I had long intended to make contact with the Luminopolis (formerly known as the Synergy Project) crew while I lived in London, and I had no idea that I would be crossing paths with Luke so soon again after the Boom Festival.

Luminopolis 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

Visonary Culture Creators Discussion Panel

The Boom Festival had already been in progress for three days when I finally arrived. I had planned to arrive a day earlier, but I had not reckoned with the lack of syncronization of various modes of transport. On this particular Thursday evening I was due to participate in the Visionary Art Culture Creators Panel at the Liminal Village. It was not possible to communicate with Delvin who was presenting the panel while I was in transit. So I rightly guessed that he was beginning to wonder if I would make an appearance. Thankfully, I was not to disappoint him.

I found Delvin hard at work in the Liminal Village MCing various presentations. It was a rather welcome rest for me to put my bags down while he tended to his tasks. It was then that various other faces started to make an appearance. Faces I had until then only know on the internet. First was Laurence Caruana, just fresh from his painting course in Northern Italy, where my friend Micha Krebs (colory.de) attended as a student. Laurence then introduced me to Robert Venosa and Martina Hoffmann. The unmistakable Luke Brown then suantered in and joined the throng. I later came to meet the rest of the panel, Carey Thompson, Andrew Jones and Zariat.

Again Delvin took on the roll of MC for our discussion panel. He started off by introducing us all and noting our rolls in creating visionary culture in the community. He gave us the starting points or questions from which one of us would start and in turn inspiring another to expand on the topic further. It was very insightful to hear our ideas developed between each other. One of us would answer and then the others would follow expanding upon the last speaker or furthering the line of discussion in another direction.

Accompanying this post is the video from our discussion panel.

After us then came Erick Davis (techgnosis.com) who unfortunately I missed. I was not aquaited with his work until I came across is Boom Festival blog post. Through visiting his site, I came to order his book “Techgnosis” which is proving to be an interesting read. I’ve also since learned that he was involved in the book “True Visions“, which is next on my reading list.

Liminal Village - Visions Gallery

Most galleries open late in the day and close early, but the Liminal Village Visions Gallery does things differently and was open the whole night. Now strange you might think seeing the gallery was situated in a large festival where people are usually doing their stomp through out the whole night until the break of dawn. When I was first told of the gallery hours I had my doubts and thought it was going to be a non event. How wrong could I have been?

It was a resounding success from opening until closing, with us usually having to herd people out before we could have our well earned slumber. The gallery was a psychedelic illumination in the night, attracting the psychenaught moths to it’s light.

While these nocturnal visitors were supping on our creative nectars, I had the opportunity to get know the other artists. There were also a number of other people who were working on site or friends of the artists that added to the congenial mix.

Being free from the gallery in the daytime I roamed over the huge site that was Boom. I have been wistful for a real Summer, by Australian standards, since my first in Europe in 2003 which had been an exception. I duely had my dose of Portugese sun which was merciless and sought the comfort of the lake on a number of occassions.

Little oasis of green permaculture were dotted over the site, and one of those was just on the doorstep of the Liminal Village and constructed by Delvin’s craft. Anja (anja-brinkmann.net) had assisted some weeks before with the German translations for the accompanying info booklet.

Robert Venosa and Martina Hoffman giving their workshop.

Robert and Martina gave their workshop, “Sketching the Fantastic“, and were rather surprised by the number of people that came to participate. Word had obviously spread. Undeterred, they proceeded as best they could with the limited materials and their limited persons, that being only two for an estimated 100+ people. As they commented they usually take a personal hands on approach to running their courses, and so with so many people this was rather hard to actualize. Even so they both managed to pull off a successful workshop.

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 was also diverse, presenting 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.

Luke Brown, Martina Hoffmann, Carey Thompson, Laurence Caruana, Robert Venosa, Delvin Solkinson

I was certainly inspired spending time with great artists. It was a wonderful meeting of minds and just simply a great social time.

Galactic Trading Cards : Visionary Art Microgallery

I had been communicating with Delvin Solkinson (elvism.net) for some time about his Galactic Trading Card deck. I am very pleased and honored to say that he invited me to participate in his grand and very expansive project. He will be including my artwork “Manifest” in the collection.

Just as exciting was the news that I would be invited to participate in the Vision Gallery at the Liminal Village, Boom Festival in Portugal. I had heard of this project through my Berlin friends a number of years previously. There are very high quality artists involved. The next step Delvin was investigating was having me attend the festival in an offical capacity.

After all of this time getting to know Delvin over email and Skype chat sessions, I would finally get to meet him face to face. He was making his way to England to meet with Brigid Marlin of the Society for the Art of Imagination (AOI) to discuss assisting them with their Inscape magazine. I was very happy to offer him a place to stay in my studio while on his travels.

So a weary Delvin finally arrived the Pixley St warehouse over laden with many bags and four bamboo hats balanced on his head. It was quite a site. Empathising with him, as I have done much the same in recent years I relieved him of his load and sat him down with a cup of tea. After catching his breath and revitalizing himself I showed him around the warehouse and took him up to the roof terrace where our intense conversations continued.

At last his travels started to catch up with him and he needed to bed down and sleep.

The following day we were due to attend lunch at Brigid Marlin’s house at Berkhamsted, north west of London. I had been out to Brigid’s some years before when I had not long been in Europe during the Summer of 2003. I recalled that I had been rather fascinated by the ruins of an old castle very near the on the way to Brigid’s house from the train station. Enter Wikipedia, perhaps the closest equivelent to the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. To my surprise this seemingly innocuous village was once a place of great importance. The site of ruined castle was where William the Conquer accepted the capitulation of the Saxons. The castle was to later become the favourite residence for royalty as much as Windsor castle is to today’s royals.

Clockwise from bottom right: Brigid Marlin, Delvin Solkinson, Michel de Saint Ouen, Leo Plaw (me) and Daniel Mirante.

When we arrived we were soon seated for lunch. Attending was Daniel Mirante, Michel de Saint Ouen and some of Brigid’s relatives. Daniel is an artist who also runs the website Lila.info which is a resource for people exploring ‘medicine culture’ ; shamanic forms of creativity and healing. He had also studied the Miche Technique under Brigid’s tutoridge. Michel has been Brigid’s right hand man, assistinging with the running of AOI and editing its magazine, Inscape. Daniel and Delvin had some catching up to do as they had long been in communication over the internet.

It was an intersting meeting of generations, perpesctives and experience with everyone sharing the same passion for Fantastic Art and its future. At the heart of the disucssions was how everyone could help each other out with their various projects. The most specifical need was for younger faces to take on roles in AOI as some of the issues associated with Brigid and Michel’s age would eventually one day make them unavailable to run the organization. I recall the same call being made at the previous luch some years ago.

Delvin, Daniel and I all eagerly took Brigid’s invitation to come up to her studio. I always enjoying visiting other artist’s creative spaces, and Brigid’s was no disappointment. There were many paintings stacked around the room which was quite full. She took the time to explain to us a series she was working on for a church.

I had brought along a copy of Peter Gric’s new catalogue that he had printed with the print on demand printers Lulu.com. As I thought, it generated much interest for the others as artists, and as magazine publishers.

Our gathering seemed brief as Michel soon departed, and a little while later Daniel had to leave because he had a few hours travel ahead of him. I opted to leave with Daniel as it gave us a chance to chat since this was the firtst time we had met face to face.

Two days later, Delvin returned to my warehouse after staying at Brigid’s house. We again engaged in many indepth conversations over cups of tea and meals. But again time was fleeting. Delvin had to prepare for the next leg of his journey and that being to the Boom Festival site in Portugal. This would be his home for the next month as he and others built the whole site from scratch in aticipation of some 20,000 plus visitors. He would also be building the Vision Gallery in the Liminal Village where a copy of my work “Manifest” would also hang alongside the likes of Robert Venosa and Martina Hoffmann.

In the early hours of the morning, I bid him farewell as he clambered into a taxi with his mountain of baggage off his next adventure.

Chet Zar at Strychnin Gallery, London.

I seem to recall attending another Strychnin Gallery opening previously on Friday the 13th. However on this occassion I was there to see Chet Zar’s exhibition “Ugly American”. Arriving early I had a chance to take in all of the exhibition and meet a few people, including the artist himself.

I found Chet to be a very warm, open and friendly soul. He’s nothing like his paintings. As he puts it, his intent with his paintings is to reflect back the ugliness he sees around himself in Los Angeles. He’s worked extensively in the movie industry. He had found it rewarding, but now is very happy to progressing to a life as a full time painter, as he did not enjoy the ugly side of Hollywood. This I surmize has given him endless inspiration for his artwork.

I whipped out a copy of Metamorphosis for him to sign for Jon Beinart and myself. My bag went home a little heavier as I also purchased a catalogue of Chet’s artwork. There was also a hard bound limited edition, but this was a little beyond my budget for the moment.

Laurie Lipton who will also be exhibiting with Strychnin Gallery again in Berlin, also attended the opening. So it was a very social evening talking to the artists, other guests, Yasha Young (the gallery owner) and her lovely staff.

Some of Chet's paintings at the Strychnin exhibition.

Chet’s artwork glowed, although the themes were monsters. He indicated that the colour theme was different to what he usually works with. He went on to explain that he was inspired by a dream with incredibly luminescent colours. It is always interesting seeing the real personality of a painting. The layering, brush strokes, technique, all of the things that are lost in four colour process printing or a digital image on a website. The image is always flattened. It was therefore a real joy to see the detail and masterful layering of Chet’s original artwork.

The night lengthened with the conversations, and eventually closing time arrived. Having already been engaged in a number of stimulating conversations, Chet, his friends, myself and mine, all trooped off to a local bar in the Truman Brewery around the corner. This lasted for one drink, until a bright spark pointed out that there were lonely beers waiting for us back at the gallery.

With a less distracting atmosphere, we settled on the gallery floor until the early hours of the morning for further existential and philosophical discussions.

We all eventually parted ways, leaving Chet to bed down in the guest room at the gallery, and ourselves to seek our repose. Did we all dream of monsters that night, or of the comrade in paint?

You can see Chet’s works for yourself at Strychnin Gallery London, 65 Hanbury Street, London E1 5J, UK.

Photos by Iris Bitter of Strychnin Gallery.

My good friend Peter Gric has
released a catalogue of 55 paintings from 1990 to 2008. I was very honoured that he sent me a copy of his catalogue. We had been discussing Print on Demand (POD) as an option for getting our artwork in to print.

While the catalogue is not an offset print coffee table book, I find it good, as did other artists, Brigid Marlin and Laurie Lipton. I think Peter's bold move has been a source of inspiration for others.

I have an earlier catalogue from Peter and I am very pleased to have this latest one in my collection as it shows the range of themes he has worked with up until now.

The catalogue
format is 21 × 29cm, paperback, with 68 digitally printed pages. The
Catalogue can be ordered via the Lulu Marketplace and costs €20.

Somewhere between imagination and Berlin lies a special place called Zozoville. The doorway to this land of oddball under the bed monsters, devils and dysfunctionally cute can be found at Mainzer Strasse 12, Friedrichshain, Berlin. The only characters that you will find within approaching any possible sense of normality are Johan Potma and Mateo.

Some years ago when I was hawking my artistic wares on the Boxhagnerplatz flea market, myself and other artist friends found an abandoned American artist in a cardboard box on the market with his brushes and colours. Taking pity on the poor starving creature, we took him home to our corner of the market where we fed and watered him with our artistic comrade and the occasional coffee or morsel of food.

So it came to pass that Mateo was in our midst every Sunday. At some point later like a rabbit out of hat came Johan. We were not sure where he came from, but we were almost certain he was one of Mateo's magic tricks.

Thus began the creative partnership that was to evolve into the multi-eyed organism called Zozoville. Housed in a tiny shop front on the streets of urban cool that are Friedrichshain, this industrious pair founded their creative factory.

The Zozoville window is like some aliens come to earth and hiding behind a thin veneer of normality, but with an odd suspicious appendage popping out film. The sort of shop where you take a strange cute pet home, but not realising it is some ravenous beast from another world whose soul intent is to eat your geraniums. 

Johan and Mateo's endevours grow from strength to strength and people are starting to notice. In the past year they've had a run of media coverage, culminating with several TV interviews.

As I write this they are currently exhibiting their artwork in Paris. Their artwork is taking them to the corners of the unsuspecting world.

Zozoville.com