Chimeria Festival 2010 Catalogue

My paintings arrived back in Berlin this week from the Chimeria Festival in France for our Fantastic Visions exhibition at Colory Gallery, Berlin. It’s been a non stop journey for my paintings since I took them to Vienna for the Irresistible Flow of Time exhibition at Galerie 10. Now what hasn’t been sold is back together here in Berlin alongside the amazing artwork of Dennis Konstantin and Micha Krebs.

While unpacking my Chimeria paintings, I discovered two copies of the Chimeria exhibition catalogue. It looks fantastic. It printed on good quality paper and full of wonderful artwork. I can only imagine how the actual exhibition actually looked. There are quite a few artists included that I know personally; Peter Gric, Satoshi Sakamoto, Hugues Gillet, Claus Brusen, Martina Hoffmann and Hector Toro.

Chimeria Catalouge - my page

It is another publication that will proudly sit in my bookshelf.

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Early Friday afternoon I arrived at the exhibition hall. The hanging of the artwork was nearing its end and Ella Buzo and Marcel Salome, the organisers were very busy. The exhibition was being installed in the same large hall they had used last time. Its size being very necessary owing to the large volume of artwork. Their exhibitions are some of the largest and best organised Fantastic Art shows I’ve attended. Although, in the Netherlands, “Imaginary Realism” is the favoured term for this sort of art. This year they broadened the scope and included a some artwork bordering on the fringes.

It proved to be a very long day as some of the artists were arriving  only that evening with their artwork. I helped out where I could with the set up.

I occupied myself through out the day photographing and shooting video of the event. Part of my aim in attending was to document the exhibition for my Fantastic Visions project. I’ve begun sorting through the footage and will post a video to YouTube and my website in the near future.

The exhibition was once again in the same large exhibition hall in Amsterdam. It is a truly impressive site to see such a large space filled with high quality artwork. Ella and Marcel put a lot of time and energy into this project to make it what it is. This year they went even further and had large posters of Viktor Safonkin‘s artwork advertising the exhibition placed all over town.

Their efforts were well rewarded on the opening day. While it is impressive to see the hall filled with artwork, it is even more impressive to see the same hall filled with people looking at the artwork. Approximately 1000 visitors attended the opening with numerous sales being made. Prominent articles about the exhibition appeared in two major newspapers, the Telegraaf and the Volkskrant.

While not all exhibiting artists did attend, a sizable proportion did. Viktor Safonkin was there with his vice like handshake as well as the very congenial Olivier Zappelli who we kidnapped later that evening on a mystery tour of Amsterdam. I chatted with Siegfried Zademack. We had last met at the Art Imaginär exhibition in Mußbach, Gemany the previous year. Slowly I’m coming to know more of them as I travel about to various exhibitions, but there were still new faces to meet.

At the opening ceremony, Marcel presented the very handsome new edition of the Dreamscapes book. Marcel changed the format and design this year and also adding many more pages to the book. Everybody was thrilled with it. With the larger size, extra pages and of course weight, it feels very substantial and its content is certainly enthralling. It is now one of my favourites in my art book collection.

There were smiles all round as the hall buzzed with activity. Artists were queried about their artwork, photos were taken and autographs given. The exhibition was still busy at closing time and reluctantly, visitors had to be ushered away as there was the long expected dinner to be had. Finally people could rest and relax. It was a time of exchanging email addresses and catalogues.

Come the next day it was work again for Ella and Marcel as they opened the hall again. Where as I boarded the train for a casual return journey to Berlin.

Following is a slide show of photos I shot at the exhibition.

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Dreamscapes 2010 - the book

The book which was released at the exhibition.

Pepijn van den Nieuwendijk and Patrick Woodroffe

Pepijn meets his childhood art hero, Patrick.

All the World is a Stage

Pepijn van den Nieuwendijk and Patrick Woodroffe

Viktor Safonkin

Viktor tries on some wacky 3D glasses to look at the artwork.

Patrick Woodroffe

Patrick with one of his artworks.

Olivier Zappelli

Olivier looks happy to be in the exhibition with his artworks.

Lukas Kandal

Lukas Kandal being greeted by Gerrit Luidinga at the opening ceremony.

Olivier Zeppelli and Frank C. Hauser

This photo cracks me up.

Team Safonkin

Viktor and his agent Ilja.

Siegfried Zademack

It's all a Blur

Olivier and I trying to coach Ella with photography.

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He was very impressed with the quality of the printing and binding. Thus he decided that he’d use the same printing service for a book of his own, that had been published almost thirty years before, but now out of print, “Bilderbuch für Planetarier” (Picture Book for Panetarians).  Almost all of the paintings from the Stone Period 1972 – 1979 are reproduced, including the Philosopher’s Stone pictures and the Stone-Images from the book “Heavy Light”.

The Book is 148 pages printed on premium paper with a matte finish and bound with a hard cover. The initial version is in German, but if he receives enough interest he will have it translated in to English.

Bilderbuch für Planetarier is available from Blurb.com.

Here is an interactive preview of the book.

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CoSM Journal 6

I just received my copy of the latest CoSM Journal today, courtesy of Delvin Solkinson.  I’ve known Delvin for some time now, initially from the Tribe 13 project to his ongoing Galactic Trading Card (GTC) set. Through the course of building his GTC project, he’s come to know and meet many artists the world over. One such artist of note is Alex Grey.

Alex and his wife Allyson, have for many years now put much time and effort into their Chapel of Sacred Mirrors project which was initially based in inner city New York. As of last year CoSM relocated to the countryside just outside of New York. Now that things are finally taking shape on the new property, there is the time and energy to turn back other things that have lain fallow for the interim.

And so with new vigour they have released volume 6 of the CoSM journal. Part of that new energy comes from Delvin, who now works as the managing editor of the journal.

The CoSM journal is a gorgeous A5 sized full colour publication, illustrating the planetary culture of visionary art and showing how this reflects the human relationship to nature, the new Journal includes artists from all five continents of our world including Mark Ryden, Pablo Amaringo, Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Brigid Marlin, Isabela Maria Hartz, Steven Kenny, Andy Thomas, Akiko Endo, Mitsuru Nagashima, and Anne Mwiti. It also features some major visionary arts organizations including Beinat.org.

Creative Director and Designer: Marisa Scirocco
Managing Editor: Delvin Solkinson
Chief Editors:  Alex Grey and Allyson Grey

You can go to www.cosm.org for more details.

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In my studio with the book "Imagine the Imagination".

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been watching artists posting images of their copy of the book “Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism”, that included their artwork, to various websites. I was becoming impatient to see the book as even a collector of mine had a copy of the book before myself. As of yesterday, the wait was finally over and the book arrived in the post.

The book is solid and the printing is of good quality. Many artists included in the book, I’ve come into contact with through the internet. And amongst those are some good friends. The book project started off on a DeviantArt.com surrealism group which includes artists from all over the world.

The photo which accompanies this article is of me with the book and the original painting “Something Fishy”, which is included in the book. Thank you to Paul Barnett for taking time out from his own painting to come up to my studio and shoot the photo for me.

Imagine the Imagination can be purchased from beinArt.org.

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Imagine The Imagination - New Visions of Surrealism, availbe for purchase now!

I just received the great news that the book “Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism”, in which my painting “Something Fishy” is now finally published and available for purchase.

The book aims to show the variety of contemporary surreal art including almost 100 works in different media: traditional painting and drawing, digital painting, fractals, photo manipulation, photography, mixed media, sculpture, traditional prints, and more. The collection will be classified in 3 groups: Visions, Dreams and Nightmares.

There is also discussion of a possible exhibition of the included artists, either at the Berlin or Poznan, Poland Abnormals Gallery. Some of my artist friends have also made it into the book. The artists included in the book are as follows:

Mr. Borda Danut Adrian, Reinhard Schmid, Jason Hopkins, Amy Kollar Anderson, Scott Façon, Andy Brady, Livia Alessandrini, Arif Bahtiar, Steve Smith, Terevet, Mariana Paola Urzua (Mariana Palova), Bogdan Zwir, Janelle McKain, Nicolas Tcherno-Ivanenko (Naiko), Bernard Dumaine, NoMe Edonna, Ehsan S. Azzuz, James I. Koehnline, Stepan Sergeevich Radibog (neonihil), Alessandro Fantini, Sal Hunter, Robert Steven Connett, Paul Flockhart, Lucian Stanculescu, Aleksander Marek Korman, Max Sauco, Manon Gosselin, David Whitlam, Szymon “Anapt” Siwak, Wojciech Grzanka, James Skelton Smith, Jon Jaylo, Véronique Portal (vic4u), Piotr Zygmunt, Babar Moghal, Christine Morren, Kris Kuksi, Leszek Kostuj, Ondrej Provaznik, Jussi Löf, Joe MacGown, Vladimir Moldavsky, Cenin von Catlien (Burcu Corbaci), Ben Drewry, Ingvild Nilsen, Otto Rapp, Joe Pimentel, Ian Anderson, Leo Plaw, Deborah Valentine, Barbara Wiewiórska, Jaros?aw Kubicki, Héctor Pineda, Gromyko Padilla Semper, Miguel Tio, R. L. Frisby, Adam Scott Miller, I. T. Hammar, Tassos Kouris, David Senecal, Joshua S. Levin, Anita Zofia Siuda (siudajSTEJ), Dan Wininger (Danger), Dariusz Skitek, Christian Exequiel Montoya Flores, Pete Hamilton, Mary J. Sheridan, Sebastian Baumer, Suzzan Blac, Gabriel Pürstinger, Ron Eady, Artur Piotr Grejner, Adam Pinson, Larissa Kulik, Paula Rosa, Brenton Bostwick, Jayakumar (Consciousspace), Aleksander Rymarowicz, Christian Edler (reality must die), Renaldo Renaldo (Rens Ink), Marc Dubord, Pedro De Kastro, Igor Siwanowicz (Blepharopsis), Michael Birnstingl, Jon Beinart, Joseph Larkin, Martin Jonsson, Ben Tolman, Ton Haring, Emily Ross, Amygdala-mars.

The book can be purchased from nEgoist.com.

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I am very pleased to announce the inclusion of my painting “Something Fishy” in the forthcoming book, “Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism“. The book will include 100 works in different media, traditional painting and drawing, digital, photo manipulation, photography, mixed media, sculpture, traditional prints, and more. The collection will be classified in 3 groups, Visions, Dreams and Nightmares. It is expected that the book will be available by October.

The book draws its selection of artists from the Deviant Art group The Surreal Arts. The group has been active the last five years refining its direction and standards. Imagine the Imagination will be the Surreal Arts’ first publication and produced to commemorate their five years online.

To help manifest the project they have teamed up with nEgoist, an independent international group of people fascinated by new art. Their goal is to promote new art from all over the world, across the whole world. nEgoist began in 2008, then under the name of nEgo. A year ago, their activities centered around Polish new art, and now they’ve decided to devote themselves to the promotion of international new art.

The artwork selected for Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism can viewed via the following links.

• Traditional Painting
  
• Traditional Drawing
  
• Digital Works
  
• Sculpture and Mixed Media
  
• Photography and Print
  

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My artwork was recently featured in the publication Invisible College. It also includes a three page interview and my artwork on the front and back of the magazine. This is the fifth edition of the magazine. Previous editions have featured Marina Hoffmann, Roberto Venosa, Andrew Gonzalez and Maura Holden. Also included in this edition is the artwork of my good friend Amanda Sage. The magazine looks just fantastic. I had already purchased edition 4 which featured Maura and had been aware of the magazine for a while. So it was a great surprise and honour to be included.

Invisible College is a full colour magazine edited by Gwyllm Llwydd. In his own words:

“The Invisible College was born partly out the urge to communicate about the emerging cultural forces of our times, and to anchor these cultural groups into perspective within the continuum of the twin streams of the Bohemian & Acadian memes. The magazine came into being about 2.5 years ago.There seemed to be a serious gap in the magazine/journal world for publications that was tracking and recording what has been evolving in the world of arts and consciousness.

The motivation was to shake the tree a bit, and get the coconuts to start falling. What The Equinox did for London in the teens of the 20th century, and what the underground press did for the US, Europe, & Australia in the late 50′s through early 70′s, and what the zines did in the 80′s and 90′s, we wanted to do for the new century. We were motivated by the examples of Mondo 2000, The Oracle, Oz, the publishing of Little Caesar Magazine & Press… and many more publications that stimulated vast creative changes in society.

We wanted to present art, poetry, tales, interviews and reviews in such a way to lift consciousness, and to engage the reader to consider alternatives to the current cultural systems that have now peaked and are now in decline. As artist and poets have been in the forefront of the various struggles and movements in society from time out of mind, journals and magazines in recent centuries have become an important part of the documenting process and have served as a focal point and organizing organ of the various aspects of what seems to be transpiring in current times.

The Invisible College evolved out of Earthrites.org and my blog, Earthrites.org/turfing. There was a prototype magazine being developed on ER, and Turfing was/is a running social and arts commentary blog. Someone… Roberto Venosa, or maybe Martina Hoffman or maybe Mike Crowley suggested that I consider doing a pdf magazine. After 2 issues of that, we went into printing via Lulu.com. It came out rather rapidly at first, and now has slowed down a bit. We are going to keep going with the print on demand situation until we can find funding to print. We have had some amazing artist, poets and writers grace the pages of The Invisible College… You can go to the Invisible College web page for the PDF versions or order a printed copy of The Invisible College from Lulu.com.

People’s reactions have generally very good. Some people want the online version in html. I understand that pdf’s are a pain, but it is absolutely free via pdf… The printed version gets rave reviews. It is pretty intensive visually. We are in the process of starting a publishing house, for poets, artist and malcontents, dreamers and drummers of various stripes. Here is to the r/evolution in your consciousness, where ever you may be.”

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Time to finally write about exhibition opening in Barmstedt at Galerie III with Anja Brinkmann and Micha Krebs. The show went off nicely with a slew of articles in the local press. I arrived a couple of days early to be present when some of the journalists were due to visit. The gallery’s location is very picturesque, being situated on a small island on a lake. This and a number of historical buildings attract day visitors from Hamburg ensuring that that the gallery has a steady stream of visitors.

When I arrived I found the gallerist, Karin Weissenbacher, who is also an artist busy sculpting in her studio which is down the hall from the gallery. Karin had done a wonderful job of hanging our works by nicely balancing our individual styles across the rooms.

Since I was the only one of we three present, I had to meet and greet the media alone. It was a little difficult to explain Anja and Micha’s artwork, but perhaps more so my own as I had ensconced myself in my studio for half a year and talked to few people about my artwork.  While I know my own feelings and thoughts about my artwork, having to articulate these ideas on the spot to journalists required some creative thinking.

However, over the next days we discovered scant mention of anything I said in the press, but rather a rehash of the basic details sent out in the press releases. Ah well, so much for the 15 minutes of fame. At least my photo was in the papers.

The day of the opening arrived. A number of the local politicians were present with one of them giving us an introduction. It was pleasing to hear that he had dug through my website to find out a little background information to help with his speech. Micha was extremely nervous leading up to his speech but he did admirably well.

Present also was a long time internet contact, Dennis Konstantin, who lives in Hamburg with his girlfriend Natalia. They had both come out Barmstedt for the exhibition. It was our first personal meeting and we had much to discuss. I agreed to visit him at his studio the next day.

The exhibition finished well and we all had a very entertaining time with Karin and her housemates.

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The new Dreamscape book has been released and I travelled to Amsterdam for the book launch and exhibition. The new Dreamscapes 2009 book represents 52 artists working in imaginary realism from around the world and has 164 pages in full color. As always, the print quality is from the highest level.

My friend Ella Buzo from Cabinodd was one of the organizers for the exhibition. She was working with Marcel Salome the publisher and director of the project. It was Marcel who greeted me first as I entered the door to the exhibition. He said he recognized me from images on the internet and welcomed me warmly. And so it was throughout the evening, finally meeting people who were until that time were no more than a data stream on my computer or perhaps images in a book. Meeting all of these artists certainly was one of the things that attracted me to the event, but more overly it was a chance to see a little bit of Fantastic art history in the making.

The book is the third in the Dreamscapes series. I have the two previous Dreamscape books. The project has continued to grow in strength and mature. A large hall was rented to accomodate all of the works for the exhibition. It looked impressive. Dreamscape unites art movements like magic realism, fantastic realism and surrealism under the collective name Imaginary Realism and brings them with various projects to the worldwide and well deserved attention.

I struggled to look at all of the artwork in detail as much of the evening was spent meeting people. What I did see was of superb quality. Amongst the new faces were one or two that I already knew, such as Brigid Marlin, Igor Grechanyk and Rardy Van Soest.

Many artists had brought books and catalogues to give away or swap. I am very pleased to say that I collected a number of them myself, including a copy of Dreamscapes presented to me by Marcel himself. I had also brought my copy of Jon Beinart‘s Metamorphosis book along to gather a few more signatures.

Ella Buzo, Marcel Salome, myself at the Dreamscapes Exhibition, Amsterdam

With so many artists to talk to time was quickly gone and the exhibition opening came to an end. However we all made our way over to a boat restaurant. Brigid called me over to join her table, with Steven Kenny, Rene Zwaga, his wife and Rardy Van Soest. Again time passed quickly and people eventually made their way home.

Many artists had made long journeys to attend, some longer than mine from Berlin to Amsterdam. The journey was well worth the effort to meet the artists and see their artwork. I hope we see many more such events to come.

Participating artists:
Michael Parkes · Lukas Kandl · Bruno Di Maio · Gerard Di Maccio · Herman Smorenburg · Michael Cheval · Ans Markus · Bodi · Fabrizio Riccardi · Victoria Francisco · Imke Meester · Richard van der Koppel · Jake Baddeley · Bas Sebus · Jolanda Richter · Ray Donley · Gabriela Garza-Padilla Adam Rote · Daniel Merriam · David Bowers · Gabriel Meiring · Igor Grechanyk · Jean Thomassen · Kinuko Y. Craft · Micha Lobi · Michael Hiep · Olivier Zapelli · Patricia van Lubeck · Paul Jaarsma · Reinhard Schmid · Rene Zwaga · Shiori Matsumoto · Siegfried Zademack · Steven Kenny · Wim Kuenen · Zeljko Djurovic · Christophe Vacher · Sjaak Kieft · Helene Terlien · Ton Haring · Peter Gric · Sergei Aparin · Viktor Safonkin · Yu Sugawara · Iurie Matei · Boris Shapiro · Tomasz Kopera · Michael Maschka · Imke Meester

For more information about the exhibition and the new Dreamscapes book visit:
www.imaginaryrealism.com

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