Psychedelic Art
by David Jay Brown
Every creative person who has ever taken a psychedelic substance yearns to express the experience. Among other things, psychedelics have a most extraordinary effect on the imagination and the optical cortex of the brain. Visual art that is reminiscent of the kinds of hallucinatory visions-- intricate, brightly colored, unusual, complex, imbued with meaning, and often geometrically organized-- that one sees with closed eyes during this hyperdimensional brain state has been dubbed "psychedelic art".
Psychedelic art is not always inspired by a drug-induced experience, but often it is. Although sometimes referred to as visionary or surreal art-- in that, like dreams, they all draw upon the unconscious as their source of inspiration-- the truly psychedelic painting is charged with an unmistakable psychoactive intensity. Sex and death are common co-mingling themes. Psychedelic art is, of course, best viewed and most appreciated while one is under the influence of a psychedelic.
Artists, for the most part, seem to take naturally to the psychedelic experience, and LSD has been shown with scientific validation to increase the creativity of artists. (This doesn't mean that taking LSD will make you creative. It means that if one already has a creative talent, then LSD has the potential to amplify this.) When psychiatric researcher Oscar Janiger did his famous LSD and creativity studies in the early sixties, he found that the group which had the most positive experiences with the substance were the artists. (Which group had the greatest number of bummers? The psychiatrists.) Psychedelic art is certainly nothing new. It's been around for as long as human beings. This article is by no means meant to be an overview of this vast subject-- that has been done in detail elsewhere-- but rather, this is a compilation of short profiles on some of the major psychedelic artists on the scene today.
H.R. Giger-- creator of the Necronomican collection-- lives in Chur, Switzerland. He is perhaps best known for the creature and sets he designed (and won an academy award for) in the original film Alien, but his paintings, which have appeared popularly as posters and on record album covers, are actually even more extraordinary. Giger is the master of capturing the bad trip. If one were able to freeze a moment from Poe or Lovecraft's worst nightmare, we would probably have an image that very much resembled one of Giger's pieces. Macabre metalic biomechanical creatures erotically slither through his dark decaying landscapes, locked in a gruesome orgy of repulsive torment, while dirty grey cyborgs grind together over carpets of screaming mutilated baby heads. He says that he has always been fascinated by the combination of "elegance and horror." His work provides us with a tour through the interior chambers of hell, the darkest regions of our souls, and it is certainly not for the squeamish. But to some, it can be so horrific that it becomes extremely beautiful. His work can be obtained through: Leslie Barany Communications, 121 West 27th St., Suite 202, New York, New York 10001, (212) 627-8488, or through: Morpheus International, 200 N. Robertson Blvd. #312, Beverly Hills, California 90211, (310) 859-2557.
Robert Williams lives in North Hollywood, California. He became well known for the contributions that he made to Zap and other underground comics during the late sixties, and his collection entitled Zombie Mystery Paintings has become a cult classic. Although Williams is a architect of grotesque and disturbing nightmare visions, and a deliberately sleazy, low-life flavor permeates his work, there is cartoony cuteness about it, and a good deal of hallucinogenic humor giggles through. So intricately detailed is Williams' work that one often can not grasp what they are looking at upon first glance. One usually has to stare at it for awhile before the complex imagery begins to emerge-- then it's almost hard to believe what one is seeing. When asked how psychedelics influenced his work, he replied, "Tremendously... they opened up the world of color and shape, and put an emphasis on things that were really not paid attention to before." Recently his work has received a great deal of recognition, including a showing at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Posters, prints, and books by Robert can be ordered through: L, Imagerie, 15030 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, California 91403, (818) 995-8488. (Full color catalog available for $4.)
Alex Grey-- well-known as a performance artist-- lives in Brooklyn, New York. If Henry Gray-- the physician who put together Gray's Anatomy-- had ever done a hit of acid we may have seen something emerge from him that is very similar to the work that Alex Grey has done. Alex Grey's collection of paintings entitled Sacred Mirrors was inspired by a psychedelic vision that he shared with his wife, which he describes in the preface to the collection as an experience of the "Universal Mind Lattice." Many of his paintings show people with transparent skin so that one can see the inner workings of their circulatory, skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems. Radiating out from his precisely detailed, anatomically exposed figures are auric waves of metaphysical energies, making many invisible dimensions visible. At times heavenly and other times horrific, Alex Grey paints people the way that they often appear to someone at the peak of an acid trip. For information on how to purchase his work contact Inner Traditions at (800) 488-2665 or Pomegranate at (800) 227-1428.
Mati Klarwein
Mati Klarwein-- creator of the infamous Milk and Honey collection-- lives in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Andy Warhol said that Mati was his "favorite painter." Mati has called himself "the most famous unknown painter in the world", because most everyone has seen the widely reproduced, visionary piece that he did on the cover of Santana's album Abraxas or his painting "A Grain of Sand" (in this issue), yet very few people know who painted them. Influenced by his mentor Ernst Fuchs, Mati's work is brightly colored, often full of dense intricate imagery shamanically juxtaposed together. There is a rapturous blissful quality to his paintings. Timothy Leary told him that he didn't need psychedelics. "I painted psychedelically before I took psychedelics," Mati says, "It's like what Dali said, I don't take drugs, I am drugs." His Collected Works 1959-1975 is available from the Raymond Martin Press in Markt Erlbach, Germany. Mati can be reached in Spain by calling: (34) 71-639-281.
Tadanori Yokoo lives in Tokyo, Japan, and is well recognized as one of the leaders in the pop art movement that began in the sixties. Although he is a very highly accomplished and talented painter, his most amazing psychedelic work is accomplished with the collages that he does, wherein are assembled many images from popular culture interfaced with angels, buddhas, and other religious images from both Eastern and Western traditions. He creates a unique celestial paradise, beautifully blending together global icons in order to invoke a transcendental realm that expresses the escalation of the human spirit. One of his best collections is simply entitled 100 Posters of Tadanori Yokoo, and his collaboration with body builder and artist Lisa Lyon-Lilly produced some wonderful psychedelic results in both painting and video. His work can be obtained through: Tadanori Yokoo Atelier, 4-19-7 Seijo Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 157 Japan. Phone: 81-3-3482-2826.
Barbara Mendes
Barbara Mendes-- creator of the "Psychedelic Legacy" series-- lives in downtown Los Angeles. Barbara covers her canvases with a richly detailed tapestry of joyous colorful celebrative images, where multi-cultural archetypes dance through an ecological blend of urban and natural settings, and intertwining plant-like structures form symbiotic unions with beautiful creatures that are delightfully dripping with erotic sensuality. The resonance with African and Hindu rhythms is present, as is the influence of underground comics. Her work has a happy feeling about it, and it simply makes one feel good. Barbara doesn't like being labled a sixties artist. "This is not just a sixties thing, it's a human thing," she says. "To me minimal art is a joke, because life isn't minimal, today it's maximal!" "My art," Barbara says, "visualizes and symbolizes the vast universe within each human brain." For information on where to view Barbara's work, or for an appointment at her private gallery call (213) 488-3508 during business hours.
Brummbaer lives in Venice, California. Famous for the magazine Germania that he published in Germany years ago and the light shows he orchestrated in the late sixties for such luminaries as Frank Zappa and Tangerine Dream, Brummbaer found his most expressive medium when he discovered the computer. Brummbaer stylishly blends the mathematical precision achievable on a computer with sensuous human sexuality, and fabricates fantastic polymorphic, cyberdelic universes. His annimated alien worlds are composed of Escheresquely organized, interlocking tubeular networks, and spinning hyperdimensional objects encoded with cryptic esoteric messages. Brummbaer says that his philosophy of creativity stems from his notion that an artist is but a humble window washer. His computer screen is simply a window, he says, that allows us to see through into other worlds, and all he does is polish the screen so that we can see through them to the other side. Brummbaer can be contacted through: Saturday Afternoon in the Universe, 520 Washington Blvd. Suite # 114, Marina del Rey, CA 90292.
Carolyn Kleefeld lives in Big Sur, California. Author of five books, she is presently completing her sixth-- The Eye Change: Architecture of the Sixth Dimension-- and is well-known as an award-winning poet. Her books are being used nationwide at universities and human potential centers, and they have received the rare honor of being translated into Braille. Carolyn painted the Songs of Ecstasy collection, a visionary series that was also published as a book of the same title. Her paintings are presently being shown in galleries across the country, and they have appeared in and on several books. She paints the ecstatic vision, and there is a profoundly joyous quality to her abstract expressionistic work. Her pieces seem like postcards from heaven. She paints a higher dimensional world that blends the organic with the astral, alchemically weaving together a magical paradisical landscape that is inhabited by strangely familiar mythic archetypes, unusual biological forms, mysterious giggling nature spirits, and radiant explosions of erotic energy. "The wilderness of the unconscious is lush with the gems of infinity," she said when speaking of her inspiration. By combining several media-- including iridescent acrylics and metal leaf-- a delightful and enigmatic characteristic arises; the paintings continuously change and transform when viewed from different angles and under different lights. To find out more about Carolyn Kleefeld's artwork and publications contact: Atoms Mirror Atoms, P.O. Box 221693, Carmel, California 93922. (408) 626-2924.
There are many other brilliant artists worthy of discussion, but unfortunately our space here is limited. Japanese computer graphic artist Yoichiro Kawaguchi-- creator of Growth Metamorphosis-- designs uncanny animations that combine fractals with organic forms, resembling DMT visions of extraterrestrial marine life. Pablo Amaringo, a Peruvian shaman, paints remarkable ayahuasca visions in Amazon jungle settings. Jorge Sicre, a Southern California painter, does marvelous surreal dreamscapes that are reminiscent of some of Max Ernst's late work. Suzanne Williams, wife of Robert Williams, does a form of abstract painting that very closely resembles the brightly contrasting, symmetrical mandalas present in many closed-eye acid visions. More than any other single effect, the psychedelics amplify the imagination, and good psychedelic art reflects this. To find out about more hallucinogenic artists there is a gallery in New York City called The Psychedelic Solution that carries a large selection of psychedelic artwork (including a large collection of blotter designs). They can be contacted at: 33w 8th St. 2nd Fl., New York, New York 10011. (212) 529-2462 ($4 for catalog.)