Babylon

MONSTER BRAINS - Stephen Romano Curator in Residence - Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos

Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos (b.1982) is a Brazilian artist whose work explores the realms of the mythic, the mystical and the occult through the use of traditional techniques, with a particular focus on the exploration of automatism in water based media. Her very distinctive style alludes to influences from symbolism and surrealism and marks a continuation of the tradition of women artists working with the subjects of magic and the occult. She has illustrated numerous book both in english and in Portuguese, including a Brazilian edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. Her work has been exhibited internationally and was featured across online and printed media alike. She works and lives in Teresópolis, Brazil."
"What is the secret of the sphinx? Mystery of mysteries, art is a domain still not entirely conquered by the rational mind. Few are the artists who dare to explore the uncharted territories. The ones who do, however, return forever changed. Those are the torch bearers, able to see what others can’t.

It can be said that Lupe Vasconcelos is such an artist. Her work is marked by a disturbing beauty that can only be conceived under a crepuscular light. Mysterious women, horned priestess, demons, ancient goddesses, chimeras. All these beings come unto light by the work of her insight. Strange ceremonies take place under the thread of brush and ink lines. Images of primordial chaos are born among ruins of black and red.

Possessing the power of an ancient enigma, the art of Lupe Vasconcelos fatally captures the imagination of the onlooker. The singularity of the artist’s vision and the fierceness of her technique set her art apart from the rest. It’s a journey to the underworld, and one cannot help but come back completely transformed."

Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos
Interview with Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos and lexiconmag.
Why do you think there is a revival in interest in all thing occult and esoteric in the arts?
LLV: It seems to me that western civilization is going through a very disenchanted moment not only in culture but in general. This could help explain the resumption of the interest for anything that might offer a relief from this state of dismay that seems so ubiquitous these days. Occulture and the esoteric offer a different point of view from the one we been having since rationalism and scientificism took over. Of course the occult has been around for a long time, regardless of what mainstream culture makes of it, but now it seems to be one of those times when conditions are just right for a big comeback. And in addition to that there is, of course, the dissatisfaction of young artists with the insipidity of current art trends. Many artists are engaged in creating art that has soul, in opposition to the sterility of traditional contemporary and conceptual art and mass culture. This growing interest in the occult and esoteric is above all a reaction. I see it as a good thing.


Do your position yourself as a shamanic presence within the culture?  Are the art objects you make functional as healing devices?
LLV: Like most artists I'm an essentially self-centered person, so my motivation for creating art is first and foremost an externalizing effort. But I'm aware of the fact that once that it's given materiality, a piece of art becomes an entity let loose. So it can function as a healing device too, as I notice it does sometimes. This fact could position me as a shamanic presence within the culture, yes, but I'm definitely not actively pursuing such outcome. To me his healing effect seems to be more of a "side effect" of all art that is imbued with meaning and soul. 


To what extent does the artist bear any responsibility for adverse responses to the works?  Bad memories that are unearthed?  Ordeals or trauma? Suppressed memories?
LLV: Well, I particularly believe that art should never be subject of neither inner nor outer censorship. One can't possibly predict possible reactions each viewer might have, be they good or bad. But it's exactly this potential for causing a reaction that can turn art into an instrument for healing. Feeling uncomfortable about a piece of art can point to some internal issue the person might have and didn't know about, for example. Of course this goes way beyond "uncomfortable" to people who can be triggered because of trauma. But this aspect is absolutely out of the artist's control, each person should be informed of what they might be seeing in a show and choose to go or not.   


Do you have any concern about being persecuted because of your subject matter and materials, particularly in a socio political environment whereby evangelicals and puritans seem to have such enormous influence? 
LLV: Yes, I do. Unfortunately. Like in the US, there is a heated political and cultural debate going on in Brazil right now, and conservatism is making a huge comeback. Brazilians were never as tolerant and friendly as the world usually thinks. Being different here was always difficult. Brazilians are conservative by default. But for a brief time it seemed that this was finally starting to change, until economic and political crisis hit and put everything to waste. There's a hunt for scapegoats, and they have chosen the same targets they always do: artists, thinkers, human rights activists and such. Recently a queer art show was cancelled after aggressive right-wing protests, and the curator is now being prosecuted for "promoting pedophilia". Something similar happened after a nude performance in the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo. The theorist Judith Butler was here last week to take part on a symposium, and protesters gathered in front of the building, setting a big puppet of her on fire to the screams of "burn the witch". She was also aggressively harassed at the airport. Those are just the most prominent recent incidents. It's a worrying situation. Even if my work is very under the radar here, I still feel far from safe because of the general climate of intolerance. It's starting to spread fast, and everything points to a turn for the worse.
Elixir

What drives you?  Is it inspiration?  A calling?  Something you were born with?
LLV: I would say it's a calling, a continuous one that has been within me since I can remember. I enjoy immensely the simple act of drawing, and as an introvert I always take refuge in doing it whenever I can. One can conjure things into existence by putting them into a surface as a two-dimensional image. It's a source of power, so to say. And it's something that's out of my control, this need to draw. 


Can you explain the path you have walked to become the artist you are?  Who were your inspirations and influences when you began your journey as an artists and what other artists have you discovered along the way?
LLV: It's a long path! I was very into illustrated books and comics as a kid, so I began to draw my own little illustrated stories at a very early age. As I grew I got acquainted with a variety of brazilian comic book artists who would inspire me to make my own zines. In my late teens I produced a lot of stuff, although most of it is now lost. But the style was very different, more to do with the comics of Peter Bagge, for example, than with what I do now. I also loved (still do!) the Love & Rockets series, it was a huge early influence on the way I draw. I love working on black and white, and this is something I think comes from comics. Also, it's important to consider is that I had little contact with "high art" during my formative years. It was mostly illustrated books and comics. So my basic visual education happened via graphic arts. So I decided to go to graphic design school and worked with that for a couple of years, which I didn't enjoy at all. After another couple of years dabbling with tattooing, I got a job as an illustrator a local newspaper. This was 2006. It was an important move for me, because it was when I really got to be paid to drawn. And it was when I learned to work under pressure and in less than ideal conditions. But my style was still completely different of what is now. After a year and half I got out of the newspaper and began illustrating children's books as a freelancer. During this time I became increasingly interested in developing my skills beyond my then limited cartoonish style. So I started reading books and frequenting workshops and courses to learn more about different techniques. And as the internet got "bigger", so did the availability of images. At this point my main influences were illustrators such as Ronald Searle, Aubrey Beardsley, Edward Gorey, Harry Clarke, Arthur Rackham and John Bauer. I was already giving my first steps into the "art world", having participated in a couple of group shows and making mural paintings. My interest in "dark" things, that had always been there, began to show in my work at this point. Then the big change happened: I moved out of my parent's house and to another town, in another state. It was the turning point. Teresópolis is a small mountain town famous for its beautiful rock formations, mild climate and insane mist. It was in this new magical setting that I began exploring my inner world through meditation and the use of psychedelic drugs. At the same time I was getting more and more acquainted with occulture. Having been a wiccan in my teens, the occult wasn't completely alien to me. One day during my explorations on the internet I stumbled upon the work of Cameron. I was deeply impressed by her amazing ink drawings and paintings, and I felt an immediate connexion. It was a very powerful encounter and it changed the way I make art. I got to know the work of lesser known artists who would become part of my personal pantheon, like Leonor Fini, Austin Osman Spare, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Rosaleen Norton. Recently I was also introduced to a virtually unknown brazilian artist, Darcílio Lima, and it was a revelation. I've been obsessed with him ever since. Another big source of inspiration to me is music. Some of my pieces were literally inspired by songs I like.






Beast of Deep Desire
The Awakening of the Will
Mystery
The Origin of Being
Untitled
Ainigma
Alchemical Wedding (detail)
Vanitas MMXIV
May This Evil Abide
FurFur
The artist’s studio
Sketchbook drawing
Poster for the book Zon
Sketchbook drawing
Green Man
The Ancestors
Flight to the Sabbath (sketchbook drawing)
Drawing in progress
Sketchbook drawingRed Star
Anima
Nemesis
Vanitas MMXV
Witch KingGrey Days
Embrace
Embrace
Vociferous
Diverse linoleum prints
Oraculum
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Agnosco Veteris Vestigia Flammae
Babylon
The Soul of the Enchantress
Sketchbook drawing
Wip photo
Untitled
Capricorn Sun
Sphinx
Heka
Untitled
Vanitas MMXVI
Evil Eye
Spirit Dagger (in progress detail)
Spirit Dagger (detail)
Spirit Dagger (detail)
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
The artist’s studioDiverse works
XV
Ophidian Cup
Wildcat
Sketchbook drawing
The Love Witch (sketchbook drawing)
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Nocturna (sketchbook drawing)
The artist
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Orpheus
Untitled
Sketchbook drawing
- Alchemical Talisman (in progress)
Pomba Gira (sketchbook drawing)
Sketchbook drawing
Suscitate
Djinn

Abrahadabra

Dark Vision (for William Mortensen)
Sketchbook drawing
Untitled
The artist
The Minotaur
The Red River Spring
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Universal Key
Transformation
The Wailing
Cat Creature
- Sketchbook drawing
The Werewolf
Night is a Black Cow
Ascension

Psyche
Untitled
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Goure
Sketchbook drawing
Sketchbook drawing
Morning Star
Illustration for the book The Raven
The artist
Capricorn Sun
Lunar Kala
The Great Chimera
Katabasis
Katabasis (detail)
Untitled
Lucifer Lux Mundi
Lucifer Lux Mundi
Demons
The Huntress
Untitled
Katadesmos I


Katadesmos II
Iblis
Luna
Sketchbook drawing
Priestess and Idol
Sketchbook drawing
White Chimera
Ascension
Albedo
Khaire
White Ceremony (detail)
Aequilibrium
Fire Walk With Me
Sketchbook drawing
Destruction Falls on All that Remains
Work in progress
Collage
Untitled (detail)
Kiss
The Unfolding of Vision
Cruel Bird (detail)
Sketchbook drawing
Oil painting in progress
Oil painting in progress
Sketchbook drawing
The artist
Sketchbook drawing
Death and the Maiden (detail)
Sketchbook drawing
painting in progress
Green man (detail)
Sword
Voodoo in my Blood
Ave, Babylon!
Anatomy of Madness
Avis Rara
Pink Sphinx
Djinn
Eros Vessel
Keryx
Spiral
Untitled
Hex
Praeses
Untitled
Alchemical Talisman
The Cup of Suspicion
The Soul of the Enchantress
Undulatio
Sketchbook drawing
Untitled
Desert Spirit




about Stephen Romano

Matthew Dutton is a multidisciplinary artist whose dark yet satirical works offer interesting commentary and insight about self, experimentation, and current events, .  Dutton received a BFA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  His work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally at art fairs and galleries such as The Blooom Art Fair in Cologne Germany, The Morbid Anatomy Museum in NY, the Wunderkrammer exhibit at The Bell House in Brooklyn, and published in the New York Times, Hi-Fructose magazine and many other notable exhibits and publications. 
Dutton keeps a studio in Chattanooga Tn.




















































MIDNIGHT PARACOSM
full gallery installation at Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn
March - June 2016.

"My studio work aims to consolidate opposites.  Balancing the duality of attraction and repulsion, the work tends to lean heavily towards attempting to strike harmony between beautiful and horrible moments.

I have noticed a few recurring principles that have adhered to my art making practices. Try something new when the opportunity arises; find a place for things once forgotten; explore relationships where surfaces, ideas, and techniques intersect.

A lot of what I do in the studio is driven by experimentation. I am very interested in exploring the limitations of the materials and techniques I use.  Having an understanding of material basics allows me to persuade them into non-traditional outcomes. Within each project I try to incorporate a new material or new technique to test. New things that are successful become part of my visual lexicon to call upon as needed.  Stumbling upon a studio discovery is what tests aim for.

Harnessing the power of charged objects into my work is another desire I covet.  I try to keep my aesthetic antennas tuned to receive hints from whatever the universe sends across my path.  I often take notice of random object that catch my attention, old and discarded things that once had a life but are now forgotten call to me to become reborn into a new form.  An insatiable compulsion to collect and reassign has always permeated my practice and life.  Restoring desire to things considered to be waste is a staple in my practice.

Surface intersections are important to my work.  As my material usage varies so greatly, confronting the relationships they create when combining has to be considered.  Extruding hand colored silicone combined with borax grown crystals might nest against felted dryer lint patches and 1970s gaudy trophy parts.  This approach to my additive building process allows me to consider the whole world as a source for art supplies! Alongside material variety, I’m interested in subtle idea projection, current political climate, and satirical irony.  A kind of whimsical horror often comes across through my work which seems inescapable considering the world around us these days.  It’s hard not to trend toward a darker shade of subject matter as a reflection of the craziness we are bombarded with daily.

Juggling work and home life often leaves me with a limited amount of time for my studio sessions.  This forces me to work very spontaneously and viscerally at times.  I’ll simmer all day (sometimes dreaming of it at night) on how to address a particular solution for a work, once I am in the studio I get into an automatic state of creating to maximize efficient time wrangling.  Drawing from mountains of collected materials, my ‘fine art’ practice serves to fulfill my personal art making cravings but there’s more.  I take on a lot of commercial art projects that call upon a whole different approach to creating.  Way more planning, budgeting, communicating, and calculating take place. Studio works are championed to let most all of those things go to the way side. "   

Matthew Dutton.
































































MIDNIGHT PARACOSM, second version






















about Stephen Romano

"Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat. ""Death confounds the sceptre with the spade." 

The Dance Macabre consists of the dead or a personification of death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and laborer. It was produced as memento mori, to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now-lost mural at Holy Innocents' Cemetery in Paris dating from 1424 to 1425. 
"The dances of death, through the various stages of human life: wherein the capriciousness of that tyrant is exhibited: in the forty-six copper-plates". David Deuchar 1788.Collection of Stephen Romano, Brooklyn.each plate is approximately 2 x 3 inches.
David Deuchar (1743-1808) had his dance of death published  in London 1788 .

Hollar's plates were much inspired by Arnold Birckmann's interpretation of Holbein's work, Deuchar has chosen the exact same variants that Hollar had chosen.

Deuchar's plates are signed HB i for "Holbein invenit" and DD f for "David Deuchar fecit" (i.e.: Holbein has invented the design, Deuchar has executed it). At the bottom of the frames it says "David Deuchar fecit".
The full story here.
















































































































about Stephen Romano

Das Kloster, weltlich und geistlich; meist aus der ältern deutschen Volks-,Wunder-, Curiositäten-, und vorzugsweise komischen Literatur Wunder-, Curiositäten-, und vorzugsweise komischen Literatur

The monastery, secular and spiritual; mostly from the older German folk, miracle, curios, and preferably comic literature miracle, curios, and preferably comic literature.


Publisher Johannes ScheiblePseudonyms: Willibald Cornelius; Democritus1809 - August 15, 1866
Johann Scheible specialized in books on mysticism and magic which he published under the general series title of "Bibliothek der Zauber-, Geheimniss- und Offenbarungs-Bücher und der Wunder-Hausschatz-Literatur aller Nationen in allen ihren Raritäten und Kuriositäten" ("Library of magic, mystery and revelation books and the miracle house treasure literature of all nations in all their rarities and curiosities”).
also published Doktor Johannes Faust's Magia naturalis et innaturalis oder Dreifacher Höllenzwang, letztes Testament und Siegelkunst. Nach einer kostbar ausgestatteten Handschrift in der Herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Koburg herausgegeben in 5 Abtheilungen. Stuttgart 1849. 

Das Kloster ("The Cloister"; full title Das Kloster. Weltlich und geistlich. Meist aus der ältern deutschen Volks-, Wunder-, Curiositäten-, und vorzugsweise komischen Literatur "The Cloister. Profane and sacred. Mostly from older German Popular, Miraculous, Curious and especially Comical Literature") is a collection of magical and occult texts, chapbooks, folklore, popular superstition and fairy tales of the German Renaissance compiled by Stuttgart antiquarian Johann Scheible in 12 volumes, 1845-1849. Vols. 3, 5 and 11 are dedicated to the Faust legend. Vols. 7, 9 and 12 dealing with topics of folklore and ethnography were written by F. Nork (pseudonym of Friedrich Korn, 1803–1850).

Germany is a land of fascinating customs and traditions. Through the work of the many authors, its folk and fairy tales have become widely read around the world. German folklore has also inspired numerous literary, artistic, and musical works. This collection is an accessible introduction to German folklore. It provides numerous examples of German folkways and presents a wide ranging selection of texts. This collection provides insight into the pervasive influence of German folklore on literature and popular culture. Das Kloster ("The Cloister"; full title Das Kloster. Weltlich und geistlich. Meist aus der ältern deutschen Volks-, Wunder-, Curiositäten-, und vorzugsweise komischen Literatur, or in English—"The Cloister. Profane and sacred. Mostly from older German Popular, Miraculous, Curious and especially Comical Literature") is a collection of magical and occult texts, chapbooks, folklore, popular superstition and fairy tales of the German Renaissance compiled by Stuttgart antiquarian Johann Scheible between 1845 and 1849. In addition to the Das Kloster volumes, this collection provides additional 94-volumes of unique perspectives on Central European culture and tradition. Included are texts essential for the study of German folk traditions, the Reformation, wit and humor and 19th-century literature.

Collection of Stephen Romano, Brooklyn


Volume One(1845), 840 pp, ch. 1-4 Volksprediger, Moralisten und frommer Unsinn(Popular preachers, moralists and pious nonsense: Sebastian Brand's ship of fools with Geilers von Kaisersberg sermons about it and Thomas Murner's prankster, completely based on the old prints and their pictorial representations)full illustrationsfull volume






















Volume 2(1846), 1074 pp, ch. 5-8, Doctor Johann Faust(Doctor Johann Faust. 1: I. Faust and his predecessors (Theophilus, Gerbert, Virgil etc.); II. Georg Rudolf Widman's major work on Faust; III. Faust's compulsion to hell; IV. Verbatim copy of the first edition of the first book on Faust, from 1587. (Previously drawn in doubt, now found) full illustrationsfull volume







































Volume 3(1846), 1065 pp, ch. 9-12, Christoph Wagner, Don Juan Tenorio und verschiedene Schwarzkünstler und Beschwörer.  (or Christoph Wagner, Don Juan Tenorio and various black artists and conjurers (or pacts with the devil or the black artists of different nations and the summoners of hell and heaven for wealth, power, wisdom and lust)full illustrationsfull volume






























Volume Four(1846), 840 pp, Der Theuerdank by Thomas Murner (The Thanksgiving or Thomas Murner's writings and his life, along with his fooling and the mockery: whether the king of England is a liar or Luther.)full illustrationsfull volume












Volume Five(1847), 1160 pp, Die Sage vom Faust bis zum Erscheinen des ersten Volksbuches,mit Literatur und Vergleichung aller folgenden(The saga from Faust to the publication of the first folk book, with literature and comparison of all the following or Doctor Johann Faust. 3: The saga from Faust to the publication of the first folk book, with literature and comparison of all subsequent ones; Faust on the Volksbühne, in the puppet or puppet shows; Spell library of the magician: compulsion to hell. - Triple and quadruple compulsion to hell. - The great sea spirit. - Wonder book. - The black raven. - Ghost Commando.– Practice magica. - Treasure trove, etc.)full illustrationsfull volume

























































Volume Six(1847), 1106 pp, ch. 21-24 Die gute alte Zeit, after the manuscript collection of Wilhelm von Reinöhl(The good old days. 1: On the history mainly of city life, traditional costumes, housekeeping, children's games, dancing, jugglers, banquets, women's shelters, magical means, church festivals, pilgrimages etc. From Wilhelm von Reinöhl's handwritten and artistic collections)full illustrationsfull volume
















Volume Seven(1847), 1120 pp, F. Nork, Der Festkalender, enthaltend die Sinndeute der Monatszeichen, die Entstehungs- und Umbildungsgeschichte von Naturfesten in Kirchenfeste (The festival calendar, which contains the meaning of the monthly signs, the origins and transformation history of natural festivals in church festivals)(on the liturgical year and its evolution out of pagan festivals)orThe festival calendar: containing: the meaning of the month's signs, the origins and changes in the history of natural festivals in church festivals, description of the uses that occur in them and the interpretation of their symbols; Characteristics of martyrs and heroes of faith worshiped with words and swords on the 366 days of the leap year; Interpretation of many miracle stories, etc full illustrationsfull volume




















Volume 10(1848) 1184 pp, ch. 37-40, Johann Fischart's Flöhhatz, Weibertratz, Ehezuchtbüchlein, podagrammisch Trostbüchlein etc.(Johann Fischart's Flöhhatz, Weibertratz, Marriage book, podagrammatic consolation book etc.)or(10: Johann Fischarts Flöhhatz, Weibertratz, marriage breeding booklet, podagrammatic consolation booklet collects toes smaller writings; Thomas Murners From the Lutheran fool, church thief and heretic calendar, and seven satyrs against him: Karsthans, Murnarus, Leviathan, etc)full illustrationsfull volume






















Volume 13also known as"The Flying Leaves of the XVI. and XVII. Century, in so-called one-sheet prints with copper engravings and woodcuts, initially from the area of ​​political and religious caricature."or(The flying leaves of the XVI. and XVII. Century: in so-called one-sheet prints, with copper engravings and woodcuts; initially from the area of ​​political and religious caricature. From the treasures of the Ulm city library. Stuttgart)
full illustrationsfull volume
























about Stephen Romano

Wolfgang Grasse (1930 - 2008) "The Throne of Death" (The Merry Go Round) Detail, 1999


Wolfgang Grasse (1930 - 2008)








Wolfgang Grasse was born Dresden, Germany in 1930. At the age of 14 Wolfgang Grasse saw firsthand the hell and horror unleashed during the British and American bombing of the city of Dresden. This event traumatized him for the rest of his life.

Afterwards, he left Germany for Italy to study art under his grandfather, Friedrich Grasse. In 1948 Grasse was arrested by Soviet authorities for an anti-Soviet cartoon of Stalin hanging from the gallows. First sentenced to death, his sentence was reduced to 25 years at hard labor in a gulag in Poland, where he said there were 12,000 other male prisoners. He spent eight years in prison, and says that the only way he survived was by his art. Grasse would bribe the guards with drawings of erotic images or portraits of their family in exchange for food and protection. Once released, he resumed his artistic career in Berlin working as an illustrator, and continuing his own art practice of painting and drawing.In 1968, Wolfgang Grasse joined an exodus from Germany to Australia. After living in Sidney for a year, he relocated to Penguin Tasmania, where he was a freelance illustrator for The Bulletin. He had several exhibitions and swiftly settled into the Australian art scene, writing and illustrating children’s books and even making a feature-length film.

Grasse has stated that even while living in the bucolic beauty and tranquility of Tasmania, he still suffered from terrifying vivid nightmares, in particular about his time in the gulag, which led him to become a devout Christian. Grasse stated that he wasn't certain if he was actually living a life in Tasmania and having nightmares about prison, or if he was really still in the Gulag, and only dreaming there about having a tranquil life.

"I paint objective, figurative art with high technical perfection to create beautiful, valuable and qualitative works with interesting visions. My art is called Fantastic Realism (Vienese School) influenced also by French surreal and Japanese art (Hokusai, Kunisada, Hiroshige)."

Fantastical and metaphysical; such is the art of Wolfgang Grasse. Some called him a “wise old magician who through his paintings casts a spell on the viewer.” Some compare him with Bosch, Bruegel and Max Beckman.

Much of his art has a gruesome edge, often dwelling on death and sometimes even on apocalyptic events which reflect the ordeals of his experiences in Germany.

Then again, it can be limpid and dreamlike, lavish and mischievous. HIs themes are many, his ability undisputed. It is incredibly intricate and technically skilled.

His work has been categorized as surrealist and also as fantastic realism. The latter was how he liked to be described. Grasse died in 2008, four days after his muse and wife tragically drowned.

He is a stand-alone artist in our culture - and, perhaps, even in our times.



"The Throne of Death" (The Merry Go Round) 1999
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"Kingdom of Death", Acrylic on Panel, 2000
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Wolfgang Grasse (1930 - 2008) "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" 1983Collection of Damian Michaels, Australia
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"Ein gewissen Dr. Ming" (A Certain Dr. Ming), Ink on paper, 1962

"Ein gewissen Dr. Ming" (A Certain Dr. Ming), Ink on paper, 1962

"Ein gewissen Dr. Ming" (A Certain Dr. Ming), Ink on paper, 1962

"Ein gewissen Dr. Ming" (A Certain Dr. Ming), Ink on paper, 1962

"Ein gewissen Dr. Ming" (A Certain Dr. Ming), Ink on paper, 1962



"Firestone" Acrylic on panel, 2004
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"Gustrow" Acrylic on panel, 1977
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“Der Wahnsinn” (The Madness), ink on paper, 1958
“Der Selbstmorder Vorm Spiegel” (The Suicide in Front of the Mirror), Ink and acrylic on paper, 1959
"Der Flotenspieler" (The Flute Player), Ink on paper, 1960
"Der Baum" (The Tree), Ink on Paper, 1961
Untitled, Ink and acrylic on paper, 1960
"Selbstbildnis Mit Tod" (Self-Portrait with Death),  Ink on paper, 1957 
"Luna", Ink on paper, circa 1980

"Dresden", Acrylic on Panel, 1977
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"Death's Victory" Acrylic on panel, 1960
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"The Broom" Ink on paper, 1981
www.wolfganggrasse.com



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The Devil Our Lord, 2013


Barry William Hale is a Sydney based artist whose work over the past 20 years has included painting, drawing, installation, video, sound and performance. He is considered one of the key exponents of esoteric art, specifically creating work which responds to concepts of western spirituality, philosophy and ritual.

“My work is a synthesis of Art and Magick, and the residue of my esoteric endeavors. It is essential for me to forge a magical link to the metaphysical subject matter. There is great power in the things people are afraid of. The Devil is the name some new regime gives to the God[s] of those whom they oppress. These repressed forces become the locus of forbidden power imprisoned by the walls of taboo. For me, these Crowned Anarchies become the agencies of liberation. My work is Gnostic in the sense that it gives primacy to direct experience with the divine. In the spirit of the Rebellious Promethean spark of the Luciferian fire." - Barry William Hale

Artist Barry William Hale, New York City 2017.  Photograph by Stephen Romano
Baphomet Rex Mundi, 2015
Japanese Devil Boy, 2013Hell Attendant II, 2014

Hell Attendant I, 2014
Hell Attendant III, 2014

IO:EVOE: The Transvocatory Media of Barry William Hale, Robert Fitzgerald for ABRAXAS Journal, Fulgur"

Barry William Hale: folding darkness, intersecting shadows & opening the Book of Spirits

The intolerable formlessness must be named, a name that struggles to contain the idea of the Devil and Legion in one composite figure: At best these provide a borderline or isthmus of transformational exchange between the horde and the sorcerer. Legion 49 ,BWH, Fulgur 2009

I have spoken elsewhere of the specificities that wove themselves into the thread whose knots captured my inspiration, that lead to the production of the primary artistic series of Beelzebub and the 49 Servitor. From the cthonic pantheon of the Mexican Amerindian paper-cut tradition which was fused with Spanish Inquisitional demonology. To the Servitors of Beelzebub from the Book Abramelin and following the result of the clairvoyance of a ‘prominent’ Irish psychic, at a sitting of the Ghost Club. Which were included in Crowley’s book of homoerotic poetry ‘The Scented Garden...’ otherwise known as the ‘Bagh-i-muattar’.

Staring into the face of which another knoweth their Devil
Through the darkling speculum myriad manifestations,
terrible and strange, monsterous and fantastic,
the Devil may be known. BWH

To give some insights into my artistic practise which can be seen as a series of different ongoing magical explorations, that I continually return to time and time again. To develop through aesthetic elaboration and further magical research. Adding to an existing corpus of knowledge which continues to grow and inform itself. The Resultant artistic residue of this process is expressed through a number of creative disciplines with a variety of artistic outcomes.

Speaking specifically about the magical source of current works in question, which emerged form a magical operation to Beelzebub. Of my own method and construction based upon personal knowledge of a variety of traditions of spirit conjuration and evocatory arts with particular reference to those that have Beelzebub within there register of spirits2.

My own magical operation endured for the span of eleven months, and was in conjunction with the writing and completion of LEGION 493. By which time the devils where bound and an irrevocable link with that mighty Devil forged. The very process of the Art Magical serves as a veritable Liber Spirituum which captures the spirits and binds their essence within the body of the work which is its pages. For the devils live in the residue of the entire magical artistic process. Therefore we are to conceptualize the entire body of work as a magical talisman dedicated to Beelzebub and Legion.

Once the magical link has been forged, and the Devil and Legion bound to the Book of Spirits sealed within the pages. The essential requirements of the magical operation -like those found within the old grimoires- are dispensed with.

It is not my purpose to expound the revelations and the full extent of the knowledge and experiences had during the course of the magical working with Beelzebub. That Mighty Devil without Solomon’s Temple would not have been built, who was at the side of Jesus as he was upon the Cross. Beelzebub is both the mortar of God’s Temple and its corrosion, eternally in flux and transition as an essential embodiment of the forces of Chaos and multiplicity. .

























































Drawing from this rich source, artist-practitioner Barry William Hale has produced a series of eleven symbolic images based upon an alternative form – a sigillic wheel – once described by Crowley himself. Around this wheel are interlocked figures that ‘symbolise the ordeal of the Adept, upon the soul’s journey.’ As author Robert Fitzgerald cites in his introduction to the work;

“The eleven compositions of CODEX 231 center around twin wheels that house the branches of two trees – the Domes and Prisons of LIBER CCXXXI and their respective sigils. The interlocked figures comprise a chimeric embodiment of these trees, and fulfill the literal ordalium of the Sorcerer, Mystic, Adept and Magician as they struggle with the demons and angels within both Tree and Self. These entities are thus portrayed in Hale’s CODEX 231 are united, both in nature and composition, and held together by each other’s feet and hands, yet ultimately by the Wheels themselves. This unity represents primordial Opposition and Integration, Control and Constraint, of the forces within both the living Adepti and their symbolic representations.”
























H&H 231 #3, 2000-2001
H&H 231 #8 upright, 2000-2001H&H 231 #8 averse, 2000-2001
H&H 231 #5


about Stephen Romano

Josh Stebbins at "No Stars: A Twin Peaks Tribute Exhibition" curated by Stephen Romano October 2019.  

JOSH STEBBINS

Josh Stebbins is a native of Enid Oklahoma. Josh works predominantly with pen and ink (which he is certainly not limited to). He has been doing art, drawing and illustration since he was very young. With only basic art courses in school and college, he is able to foster his pursuit for progression while expanding his own creative horizons. He is very thankful these days to be recognized for all the work he has produced on his journey in life thus far.

Josh tries to convey in his style and subject matter a sense of duality, strengthened by his choice to work mainly in black and white. His subject matter presents undertones of beauty in darkness. These subjects can run the spectrum from religion to horror, often looking at the human experience, mostly from a darker side. Josh says of his work, “People generally realize it’s there [the darker side], but don’t want to face it…for me the garden of Eden has long since had a ‘Sorry, We’re Closed’ sign on its gate.”





Josh Stebbins in Queens New York October 2019. photo by Stephen Romano

SLASH on stage wearing Josh Stebbins' designed shirt from Black Market Art.



















































































about Stephen Romano

LE POITEVIN, [Eugène Modeste Edmond]. Les Diables de Lithographies. Paris / London: Chez Aumont / Charles Tilt, n.d. [1832].

Stephen Romano collection, Brooklyn NY.

Impish devils dance, make merry, kidnap young maidens, engage in scatological activities, make mischief upon men and women. and generally have a hell of a time as rascals frolicking in diabolical fun. It is the most famous of all works, paint or print, by Le Poitevin, whose "Devilries" established a genre in the wake of the Romantic school's Mephistopheles and Faust, from scenes to fright to scenes that, as here, delight with lively charm. Le Poitevin's devilries with their light, devilish humor became extremely popular with other artists, such as Michael Delaporte and Bayalos. Le Poitevin (1806-1870) was a French painter and lithographer. As a painter, he specialized in marine art , as a lithographer he is best-known today for Devilries. He was a contributor to The Journal of Painters and Charles Philpon's La Caricature. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a pupil of Louis Hersent and Xavier Leprince. Very popular in his time, he exhibited at the Salon from 1831 until his death in 1870 .

"Tout autre est Eugène Le Poitevin, le peintre de marines, qui popularise un genre bien différent mais dont le retentissement ne fut pas moins grand. Procédant en droite ligne du Méphistophélès de Faust et des tendances au bizarre de l'école romantique, les diableries de cet artiste vinrent jeter une note pittoresque et amusante au milieu des estampes sans couleur du consciencieux lithographe. Pendant un temps ce ne furent plus que diables et diableries, diables souvent érotiques, diableries plus ou moins légères. Les Diables, Petits sujets de diables, Bizarreries diaboliques, Encore des Diableries; c'est sous ces titres que se répandaient partout les albums à couverture brune de Le Poitevin qu'imitèrent bientôt de Bayalos avec ses Diablotins et Michel Delaporte avec ses Récréations diabolico-fantasmagoriques. Diables blancs et diables noirs suivis de diables rouges et de diables verts. Le diable se glissait partout, commettant mille incongruités, relevait les robes des femmes, les déshabillait comme par enchantement, les mettait en cage, les tirait par les cheveux, ayant toujours à son service un nombre incalculable de petits diablotins courant à tort et à travers les feuilles. Il y eut une telle invasion des sujets de messire Satan que ce ne fut plus, comme dans la chanson, « Vive la lithographie, » mais « au diable, les polissonnes" (Grand-Carteret, Les Moeurs et la caricature en France, p. 174).

"Quite different is Eugène Le Poitevin, the painter of seascapes, who popularized a very different genre but whose repercussions were no less great. of this artist came to throw a picturesque and amusing note in the middle of the colorless prints of the conscientious lithographer. For a time they were only devils and devils, devils often erotic, devils more or less light. Diabolical oddities, Encore des Diableries: it was under these titles that the brown-covered albums of Le Poitevin spread everywhere that Bayalos soon imitated with his Devils and Michel Delaporte with his Devilish-phantasmagorical recreations. White devils and black devils followed red devils and green devils. The devil slipped everywhere, committing a thousand incongruities, raised the robes of s women, undressed them as if by magic, put them in cages, pulled them by the hair, always having at their service an incalculable number of little imps running erroneously and through the leaves. There was such an invasion of the subjects of Messire Satan that it was no longer, as in the song, "Vive la lithographie," but "au diable, les polissonnes" (Grand-Carteret, Les Moeurs et la caricature en France, p . 174).

Le Poitevin (1806-1870) was a French painter and lithographer. As a painter, he specialized in marine art , as a lithographer he is best-known today for Devilries. He was a contributor to The Journal of Painters and Charles Philpon's La Caricature. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a pupil of Louis Hersent and Xavier Leprince. Very popular in his time, he exhibited at the Salon from 1831 until his death in 1870.



























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































about Stephen Romano

A champion of esoteric Art – Stephen Romano of the Stephen Romano Gallery will be curator in residence at MONSTER BRAINS, five days of exciting material everyday! May 3 - 8 2020!

Exhibit / April 30, 2020

Object Name: The Gods from Outer Space
Maker and Year: Magnet/Methuen, 1978-1982
Object Type: Comic Books
Image Source: Komiksy Online, exhibit author’s copies
Description:  (Richard McKenna)

In the summer of 1980, a 9-year-old child was made privy to startling revelations regarding the origins of the human race. Namely, that in the distant past, a scientific expedition had ventured from its homeworld of Delos to what was then known as the Blue Planet for the purpose of making genetic changes to the genomes of one species of that planet’s inhabitants in order to speed up the development of intelligent life—and that this spurring on of intelligence was a galaxy-wide tradition that had been going on for millennia, as advanced species tinkered with the biology of less-evolved species in an ongoing chain of giving each other a leg up the evolutionary ladder. The child also learned that the figure of Satan was actually a memory distorted by its passage down through the generations of a rogue Delosian named Satham who, along with his helper Azazel, had rebelled against the edicts of the mission, and that the cherubim with flaming sword set to make sure Adam and Eve didn’t try and sneak back into the garden of Eden was actually a Delosian spacecraft known as a “sonde” firing its thrusters.

The medium through which these awesome facts were divulged was not some august tome but four slim volumes of remaindered comic books retailing at the low, low price of 80 pence for the lot, the site of their communication no solemn temple but a cash&carry outside Doncaster, and that 9-year-old child was—surprise!—me.

Its Polish title also containing the accuracy-improving addendum of “According to von Däniken,” The Gods from Outer Space, as it was called in Britain, was an eight-part (though only the four I bought that day were available in the UK, the eighth volume published many years later) comic that took as its point of departure Erich von Däniken’s silly “theories”—read “pervy racist fiction”—about extraterrestrials having influenced humanity’s development in the distant past, the basis of which Carl Sagan identified as being “that our ancestors were dummies.” In 1977, with von Däniken mania still thriving, Alfred Górny of Polish publishing house Sport i Turystyka—Sport and Tourism—made an agreement with Econ Verlag,  the publishers of the German edition of Chariots of the Gods?, to create a series of comics based around von Däniken’s crackpot concepts. Polish journalist and Auschwitz survivor Arnold Mostowicz was brought in as writer, and when Grzegorz Rosiński, the artist originally intended to realize the comic, was snaffled by French comic Tintin, he suggested his fellow pupil at art school and Polish comics veteran Bogusław Polch as the man for the job. Górny, Mostowicz, and Polch spent the next four years detailing the adventures of the expedition to the Blue Planet.

The leader of the expedition and the protagonist of the series is the only Delosian woman we meet, but confusingly—despite the sexism implicit in having literally only one speaking female character (though she is later joined by a clone of herself)—Ais (as she is called in the British version) is pretty much the equal of all the male characters put together: quick-witted, bold, intelligent, beautiful, not above laser-blasting a few bad guys and dedicated to the values of the mission but ready to rebel when necessary against the eugenicist dictates of the “Great Brain,” the emotionlessly logical super-intellect that dictates Delosian decisions.

From the moment they set up their first base in the Andes where they (natch) build the Nazca Lines as a landing strip, Ais’s expedition is plagued by setbacks, from rebellious Delosians and Robocop-ed reptiles to insectoid aliens who plan to strip Earth of its natural resources. The plot spans centuries and goes on to include Atlantis, the Pyramids, the Tower of Babel, Hindu gods, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Flood, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Nephilim, crystal skulls, the Book of Ezekiel, and the chariot of Yahweh, as well as the aforementioned Ur-Beelzebub—the dastardly Satham, and his army of mutants and robots. The story is an enjoyably confusing nonsense minestrone, but the story is entirely secondary to what makes The Gods from Outer Space so compelling: page after page of Polch’s lyrically beautiful artwork. His sure, clean line and mastery of shade and form create a credible and coherent visual world with its own technologies and aesthetics that in its way is as intense and visionary as the images generated by Jack Kirby’s infatuation with ancient astronauts. Polch died at the beginning of 2020, but the work he leaves behind him—which also includes the wonderful Funky Koval—ensure him a place in comic book history.

While still fairly dodgy, what with logic-driven technocrats imposing their “mission” on a bunch of unsuspecting primates, The Gods from Outer Space‘s interventionist ethics are perhaps closer to those of 2001: A Space Odyssey than to von Däniken’s reactionary gobbledegook. Despite its links to his deeply ambiguous schtick, though, The Gods from Outer Space was also a handy primer for young minds re: the idea that humanity’s myths and legends might in reality be nothing more than the misunderstandings and misrememberings of events or inventions long past, and that even the god we sang hymns to in school assembly every morning, even the idea of “good” and “evil” themselves as discrete and mysterious forces instead of the results of circumstance, history, and environment, might all just be a load of bollocks we’d made up over the millennia because it was easier than actually trying to understand things. Is it possible that, in its way, The Gods from Outer Space hinted at some burgeoning awareness that the historical narratives foisted on us by the establishment were perhaps not totally trustworthy? That the missing element was aliens meddling with our DNA might be pushing it a bit, but maybe there was a kernel of healthy skepticism in this particular take on von Däniken’s delirium—though as we’ve witnessed in recent years, skepticism without actual knowledge can easily metastasize into something as unhealthy and dangerous as unquestioning belief.

It might seem a stretch to accept now that there was a time when many adults believed—with varying degrees of conviction—in the cosmic theories of a Swiss hotelier with criminal convictions for fraud, as well as the Bermuda Triangle and Bigfoot. But this paranormalia was absolutely a part of the texture of everyday life. Though given that forty years later we are living in a world increasingly defined by the bellicose beliefs of reactionary fantasists willing to believe in anything that will provide them with the solipsistic buzz of victimhood, it’s not really so hard to credit the hold these strange ideas exerted over the collective imagination. In comparison, maybe The Gods from Outer Space‘s contention that our ancestors got made clever by aliens doesn’t seem so bad.

Exhibit / April 28, 2020

Object Name: Brought To Light: Shadowplay—The Secret Team and Flashpoint—the La Penca Bombing
Publisher and Year: Eclipse Books, 1989
Object Type: Graphic novel
Image Source: Archive.org (Shadowplay—The Secret Team and Flashpoint—The La Penca Bombing)
Description (Michael Grasso):

In 1989, at the very end of the Cold War, a group of four prominent mainstream and alternative comic book writers and artists created a double volume graphic novel exposing the rampant injustices, assassinations, and terrorism facilitated by the CIA and its creatures worldwide, ostensibly to fight global communism in the years following World War II. This pair of books, sold under the shared title Brought To Light, came courtesy of one of the only justice movements since the Church Committee to successfully take on the American deep state and confront the CIA’s historical criminal behavior.

Founded in 1979 as an outgrowth of its founders’ work to achieve justice for presumed-murdered nuclear worker and union activist Karen Silkwood, the Christic Institute took as its inspiration the Christian mystic/philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his concept of a “christic” cosmic energy that he penned a mere month before his death. Danny Sheehan (a lawyer who had been involved in the Pentagon Papers case), Sara Nelson (a former television journalist and labor secretary for the National Organization for Women), and the Reverend William J. Davis (a Jesuit priest who would go on to spend most of the early 1980s in Latin America observing the crimes of reactionary regimes from Pinochet’s in Chile to the Contras in Nicaragua) founded the Christic Institute to provide legal and investigative aid to resist right-wing terrorism and corporate malfeasance across the globe. In the early 1980s, Christic would go on to bring a lawsuit against the Nazi and Ku Klux Klan terrorists in Greensboro, North Carolina who murdered four left-wing protestors in November 1979, including as defendants in the lawsuit federal law enforcement officials and the many Nazi collaborators within local law enforcement who allowed (and even encouraged) the Klan violence to take place.

As the Reagan years unfolded and a resurgent CIA found its footing again interfering on the global stage (especially in Central America), Christic found itself at the center of the case that would paradoxically lead to both its greatest publicity and the Institute’s eventual downfall and dissolution. In 1984, at the height of the Nicaraguan civil war between the revolutionary Sandinista government and the Reagan CIA-backed right-wing Contra rebels, a hastily-arranged press conference was put together to allow a disillusioned Contra official named Edén Pastora to speak to the press. For months, CIA officials had allegedly been tracking Pastora, a former Sandinista who had gone over to the Contras and now found himself at odds with the Contras’ alliances with foreign forces in the form of both the CIA and drug traffickers from South America. A purported “photojournalist” named Per Anker Hansen (believed by some to be CIA-allied Libyan agent Amac Galil) attended the Pastora press conference at a remote guerilla camp at La Penca on the border with Costa Rica, suspiciously guarding a package with “photographic equipment” that was actually full of C-4 explosives. Hansen/Galil left the building and allegedly detonated the package remotely. Three journalists and four guerillas died in the resulting explosion, and 21 were injured.

In the months following the bombing, American journalist Tony Avirgan (who was injured in the La Penca bombing) and his wife Martha Honey engaged in their own investigation, finding the CIA’s fingerprints all over this assassination attempt on Pastora (who survived the bombing with injuries and ended up eventually reconciling with Daniel Ortega’s Sandinistas). In 1986, as the Iran-Contra affair was in full swing, the Christic Institute filed a RICO suit in federal court against Oliver North and several other members of “the secret team” responsible for dirty tricks, weapons smuggling, and targeted assassinations in Central America throughout the 1980s. Christic ended up losing the case, its 501(c)(3) status, and its very existence thanks to “frivolous lawsuit” penalties levied by a Nixon-appointed judge whom Sheehan would find was associated with both Meyer Lansky’s Miami National Bank, a center for CIA-Mafia funding throughout the ’60s and ’70s, and the CIA itself as a “CIA [trained] attorney.”

While the La Penca bombing case was in full swing, the Christic Institute collaborated with indie comics scribe and political activist Joyce Brabner—who had attended one of Sheehan’s lectures and been inspired by his work—on a comic book retelling of the La Penca/Pastora case. Avirgan and Honey dictated the details of their investigation to Brabner, and she and comic artist Thomas Yeates put together an illustrated version of the La Penca bombing. It was published on indie comic imprint Eclipse (home of the Iran-Contra trading card set) and paired with a second comic detailing the CIA’s overall Cold War activities by writer Alan Moore and artist Bill Sienkiewicz. Yeates’s art style evokes war and adventure comics of an earlier era, much along the same lines as his future work on venerable newspaper serials like Prince Valiant, Zorro, and Tarzan, to simultaneously effectively convey and subvert the web of CIA intrigue that converged in that camp on the Costa Rica border.

Moore and Sienkiewicz’s Shadowplay—The Secret Team offers a broader history of the CIA’s interference and a much more hallucinatory visual and narrative experience. The comic centers on an avatar of the CIA and American imperialism in the form of a maniacal, drunken bald eagle who “represent[s] the Company,” the common sobriquet for the CIA, and who explains American intelligence interference abroad in terms of the brutality and murder necessary to protect American (business) interests. “I like to think I’m sellin’ folks a dream,” the eagle says, before accepting the fact that he’s responsible for “swimming pools full of blood” to keep that American dream—the international machinery of commerce—moving. Moore explores early Cold War CIA interference in elections from Italy to Iran to Guatemala before delving deeply into the Mafia- and corporate-aided CIA programs of assassination, illegal invasions, narcotics trafficking, and mass murder from Cuba to Southeast Asia to the Middle East, ending with an explanation on how the heirs to these earlier Cold Warriors were behind the Reagan era’s affairs in Central America and Iran.

Where Brabner and Yeates rely on the specific chilling details of the events leading up to the La Penca bombing op to illustrate the danger of the CIA’s activities, Moore and Sienkiewicz’s work evokes larger, more mythic themes, conveying the danger of the “American way of life” for much of the rest of the world. They subvert all-American symbols like the Statue of Liberty (crowned in rifles and carrying a giant dollar sign in the place of her tablet), baseball (CIA “trading cards” featuring Mafia don Santo Trafficante and Cuban exiles), and Pepsi (implicated in the manufacture and refinement of CIA heroin in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War). Sienkiewicz, by 1989 an established comic artist whose avant-garde, impressionistic style had given new life to Marvel titles like The New Mutants, and who had worked well within the political and mystical intrigues of limited series like Frank Miller’s Elektra: Assassin (1986-1987), here channels not only his own dazzling impressionistic style but the freaked-out hallucinatory caricatures of Hunter S. Thompson illustrator Ralph Steadman. Alan Moore’s own political stances on American imperialism and fascism had, of course, found full expression in his own pair of 1980s opuses, Watchmen (1986-1987) and V For Vendetta (1982-1989).

The two Brought to Light volumes stand as a final testament to both the Christic Institute’s vital work and as a signpost for the end of the Cold War, a time when nearly all the secrets of the CIA’s outrageous Cold War activities had become well-known—not thanks to America’s mainstream newspapers and television media, but because of independent, politically-engaged voices working diligently in underground media to strip the veils away from the rot and endemic corruption at the center of the nation’s politics.

"Long-time illustrator Peter Klúcik was asked to illustrate J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit soon after communism fell in 1989. For this project he created around 40 illustrations that were rich in detail and conveyed the mysterious atmosphere of the book very well. But the publishing house commissioning them failed to adjust to the market economy and lost the right to publish the book. A second one approached him, but only for the book's cover. Then a third publishing house appeared on the scene - after the Tolkien-mania prompted by the 2001 release of the first film in The Lord of the Rings sequence -- but this was denied the copyright.
After all that, Klúcik made a decision: "I have had it with illustrations. I am going to paint!" He switched from illustration to painting, and since then he has been creating a fantasy world of mysterious animals using oil on canvas. He finds inspiration in the real animals he sees in books and on television documentaries, such as tigers, zebras, and rhinos. To these images he applies his wild imagination, twisting their bodies and playing with their fur and colours until they are transformed into new, unknown creatures living in fantastic surroundings. 
Before he gave up illustration, Klúcik created pictures for around 40 books, including Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. But the book that enabled him to expand his imagination the most and brought him to the path he later set out on was the last one he illustrated - Tolkien's The Hobbit. From the evil-looking but funny hairy squirrels to the curly tails on the flying dragons, it was an easy transition to his dreamed-up world inhabited purely by animals." - quote source
Artworks found at the Toto! Gallery
Much smaller resolution versions of these were previously shared here in 2006.

hiziri-pro:

Axe Beak.

Posted a picture to the patreon. Full size JPG and PSD and video can be downloaded according to the amount of support. https://www.patreon.com/satoshi_matsuura

k141:

superbloom

k141:

Dragon Familiar

k141:

Lift!

skarabeus:

dA link to Iriz
Coffee? :D

Done with watercolours and a few other things (liquid mask, black liner) for Araenor

Return to the Würstreich with the newest game from GOBLINKO! DUNGEON BREAKOUT is a heavily flavored, tile placement party game, set in the same world and populated by the same weird characters and creatures as DUNGEON DEGENERATES: Hand of Doom. With easy-to-learn rules and fast game play action, DUNGEON BREAKOUT will be a hit with any crowd!

You’re trapped in the dungeon below Brüttleburg, but there is a chance for escape! Make your way through the maze-like corridors, collecting loot and battling monsters, and find the exit first to win! Watch out though, in addition to lurking monsters, there could be a jailor around the next corner, or one of your opponents trying to stop you!

Check out the kickstarter here! Only seven days left!