Werner Hornung & Joma Sipe (An Interlude)

Romantic Utopia - digital art - © 2014, Werner Hornung

Well, it's time for another interlude... and as I haven't featured any contemporary (2-D) artists in a long time, I'd like to present two amazing artists I came across recently on the web; each a transdimensionalist in his own way.

The first is the German-born digital artist Werner Hornung, an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts, whose artistic career began in Paris in the early 1970s and continues there till this day.

His digital work is intricate, dramatic, surreal and multi-dimensional. I am particularly drawn to Romantic Utopia above, but it represents merely one example of the mysterious and multi-layered magic inherent in his work; most especially when the images come to life in an animated .gif format on his must-see website. He also has an exhibit at MOCA's virtual museum, and more of his enigmatic images can be found here and here.

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A sampling of images from Lumine Stellarum - © 2015, 2016 Joma Sipe
(click to enlarge)

The second artist I present to you is the Portuguese visionary, and sacred geometer, Joma Sipe. I don't think I've seen any geometrical work in the past that even compares to his masterful (and meticulous) drawings. He uses gold and silver ink on a black background and then goes so far as to embed small crystals in his images, illuminating them in such a way that the effect is truly breathtaking. His subject matter includes many of the geometric and esoteric symbols discussed in my previous post plus numerous others, so he's particularly relevant here. Above is just a tiny sampling of his work - a visionary's view of the stars - but to truly experience the magic of Joma Sipe, I recommend visiting his website, or his YouTube channel, where the two videos (below) featuring his work were found.

A Tale of Two Symmetries: A Lover's Pentacle, A Lover's Cross (updated 11/17/16)

Illustration from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" - 1907, Arthur Rackham
(All images in this post can be clicked on for larger views.)

Alice Takes Another Leap

"What IS a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
`Why,’ said the Dodo, `the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no `One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over."

- Excerpt from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Chapter 3) found here.

"The Dodo is a fictional character appearing in Chapters 2 and 3 of the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). The Dodo is a caricature of the author."

- From the Wiki entry for the Dodo in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. (Note: the now-extinct dodo was the first example of humanity's ability to wipe out an entire species.)

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Earlier this year, when I was first inspired to write a series of posts on the topic of Love, I was at loss for a central focus. The topic of Love is vast; where to begin... and how? As a visual artist, it's almost as if I needed a metaphorical image, a symbolic embodiment of the myriad ideas and images that began to flood my mind. Had I no muse, no intuition, no relationship with my unconscious mind (and no respect for spontaneous inspirations), the entire project would've floundered from day one. But, this is not the case. I love leaping down rabbit holes! I am the Alice of all Alices, when it comes to pursuing mysterious prompts from the unconscious realm.

As it happened, my first clue arrived in the form of a sudden attraction to an old graphic of mine: a three-headed "sacred" bird I created several years ago as an experiment in creating faux elements; in this case, transforming a plaster carving into a wooden one. (see inset, left). I found myself playing with this image - and, when you come right down to it, unpremeditated play is probably the best way to initiate a dialogue with the unconscious - flipping and juxtaposing copies of the image side by side. I noticed that when the birds faced each other, their necks and their backs formed the shape of heart. I cropped their legs off and this became the first image. But, I also felt the full body mirrored images were intriguing as well and realized I could use all three designs if I created a box in three dimensions.  The idea of making it a music box was the true epiphany - the eureka moment - when the concepts of the language of the birds and the power of Love were united. In other words, I found my metaphor; the Music Box was born...