And She Whispered Numbers Into Me

The completed version of the sketch posted here. The numbers flow in from the right, taking the form of Japanese numerals (both traditional and modern), before trailing through the face and turning into a mixture of arabic numerals and algebraic symbols. The work is intended to communicate a sense of fast-flowing changing humners and I feel I have been partially successful in this.

Salvic Sisterhood

Salvic Sisterhood
50cm x 40cm, 2008 and 2009
Acrylics Gouache and Markers on Canvas

A piece which was a long time in the making, mainly because of other commitments. This is from my salviaspace project, an arts project exploring the twisting spaces and entheogenic visions of the Mexican herb salvia divinorum. Here we see a multiple epiphany of a female salvia spirit unenfolding from the salvic space. This is one of a long series of images and sketches, and I keep a website of the salviaspace project here.

Six Epiphanies

Six Epiphanies - 30cm x 30cm each
Acrylics, Gouache, Inks & Markers, 2009

After creating Honey For The Mistress Of the Labyrinth, I started to become inspired by images of the Minoan epiphany found on ring seals and on small-scale statuary, particularly those found at peak sanctuaries throughout Crete. I consider that these images are suggestive of a different cultural mandala than the transformative labyrinthine dance depicted in Honey..., one which is often called the epiphany. These six pieces, now exhibiting at the Cupola Gallery in Sheffield, take their colours from Minoan frescoes but depict embodiments of archaic womanhood which were anciently current across the European Neolithic and Bronze Age. I intend to follow these up with works expressing such womanhood in a more integrated form; also a series on archaic manhood as evidenced by Minoan statuary is also forthcoming.

A limited edition booklet will soon be available, containing images, sketches and thoughts on Honey... and these six epiphany images.

Migraine Sketch (untitled as yet)

Digital sketch, 2009

In 2008 I produced two migraine-related works entitled The Way To Lightning Mountain Is The Way Into Me and Vision Of Unity Across 20000 Years. This sketch continues that series and is the result of a recent decision I have made regarding the direction of my arts practice for the next few years.

The Way To Lightning Mountain Is the Way Into Me, 2008
(a work which refers less directly to the mgiraine experience)

Following some positive feedback from visionary artist Laurence Caruana, a man who quite literally wrote the book on Visionary Art, I have resolved to express a deeper visionary intent in my work which exposes more of my soul in the work: being brave and not referring obliquely to the (sometimes) disturbing aspects of the work, but being direct about them, is key here. I have also decided to produce a series of works about migraines and the disorientating, visionary and jarring experiences I have when I suffer them. I have had them since I was a child, so it's important to express their fractured imagery face on.

The Night I Discovered My Bones

10cm x 30cm sketch

The last post for today, I promise. With new blogs I always feel I have to get up to speed with all the current projects going on. Anyway, this is the first sketch for a new series of works (as yet untitled) which will be showcased in an exhibition in April 2010. Long way to go yet. The sketch here recalls an experience some nine years ago when stood in the corner of a room, held my arms aloft and watched my skin peel away to reveal bones. One of the first times I felt the presence of my own organic body-ness. The final piece is intended to be 60cm x 180cm, as are the whole series of works.

Human Download

Human Download - A short art film
Now showing at Holy Trinity Church, Boar Lane, Leeds
as part of the ArtsMix* sponsored BORN exhibition

An approximately 8-minute film which expands upon my recent digital piece ‘And You Cannot Know Me By My Flesh Alone’ (pictured below), seeking to use a succession of rapidly changing images of drawings, photographs and excerpts from the digital piece to define and explore the totality of human experience in the shortest amount of time. Each image is suffused with red, suggestive of the colour of blood which is sometimes seen as the essence of humanity.

Over 500 images have been produced for this film as well as several animations and these proceed rapidly enough (still images change every 0.9 seconds) that the film is to a certain extent perceived more unconsciously than consciously. My first foray into short films, and an attempt to bring the genres of visionary drawing and moving image together.

Limited edition DVDs are on sale at the exhibition until June 19th, after which they will be available through my website. I will try to upload an excerpt of the film on here when I can…

And She Whispered Numbers Into Me

30cm x 10cm Sketch

A new sketch based on an early morning dream which was only fragmentarily remembered a few days later on reading the phrase 'she whispered some numbers to me'. It immediately reminded me of a very similar salvia divinorum experience some years ago in which numbers were physically inserted into me through the power of speech. A surreal thought, and a positive one for the creation of this artwork, which has already been marked out on 90cm x 30cm canvas. I intend the background to be mostly dark, and the skin colours to be partially-obscured by arrays of numbers. The long lines are to be bright blue to create a hopefully electric visionary intent...

Honey For The Mistress Of The Labyrinth

150cm x 90cm in 15 panels
Acrylics, Gouache, Inks & Markers on Canvas

Inspired by the vibrant frescoes and images of vitality found throughout Minoan archaeology, this multi-panel work explores the original Minoan conception of the labyrinth as a transformative spiral dance, as outlined in my recent essay Minoan Honey: The Bull, The Mushroom And The Mistress Of the Dance. We see here the central figure of Mistress Ariadne as the initiator, participant and ultimate truth of the dance, unwinding for us a mandala of an anti-clockwise spiral which passes by an image of Glaucos as a sea deity before confronting the famous bull-leaper. As the spiral rolls out above Ariadne's head we move from the realm of life to that of death and greet a gorgon mask and an owl before arriving at our final point: an image of Minos-Asterion as transcendent grandfather and grandson followed by the drowned Glaucos in the honey mushroom pot.

This work brings together ideas from diverse thinkers as Cretan archaeologist Nikolaos Platon and psychedelic theorist Terence McKenna, and is exhibiting in ArtMazia Gallery in Massy, France throughout much of 2009. A limited edition commentary booklet which explores this transcendental mandala in detail is currently in production and should be available from my website www.biroz.net very soon.