Biographies
Each member of the Visionary Guild is gifted in a certain domain, and teaches courses in their area of expertise – not just theoretically, but also through the direct transmission of knowledge and craft.
- Managing Director:
Florence Ménard - Honorary Director:
Ernst Fuchs
Kuba Ambrose
Kuba Ambrose
Australian artist Kuba Ambrose brings his unique combination of inner vision and skilled expression to the Academy’s curriculum. Born in Melbourne, Ambrose was visited by powerful dreams in his early youth, which prompted his need to create art.His work primarily deals with the timeless and ongoing relationship between humankind and the Creator. In 2005 he completed a Bachelor of Art in Painting at RMIT before embarking on a nine month journey to Europe to further his growing interest in renaissance art. In 2007 he spent six months working as a painting apprentice for Austrian artist Prof. Ernst Fuchs. During this time he accompanied Prof Fuchs with ongoing projects in Klagenfurt, Vienna and Monte Carlo and was introduced to a number of early renaissance painting techniques.
In 2008 Ambrose was employed at Victorian Art Conservation where he continued his art education, working as a picture framer and art restorer. During this period he began a cycle of painting exploring the theme of ‘divine influx’ expressing the interplay of divine forces within the receptive vessel of the human being. His travels led him to Jordan, Israel, Bali and Far North Queensland. Two years were spent living in the small rainforest town of Kuranda in Far North Queensland. During this period of writing and painting Ambrose began to assist a small community with the creation of the Recharge Kuranda transition town initiative and supported the formation of the Infinitus Studio. In 2011 he was invited to teach the Mischtechnik during a ten day painting retreat in Ubud, Bali. This was followed by the InSpire workshop in Cairns and the Sacred Realms and Sacred Visions seminars in Melbourne together with Daniel Mirante. In 2012 he travelled to Torri Superiore in Italy to participate in the Expanded Visions in the Mischtechnik seminar hosted by Laurence Caruana. In 2012 he released his first publication of writing Branches of the Vine – Poems by Kuba Ambrose.
His uniquely intuitive approach and strong feeling for spectral colours make him the ideal teacher for our courses on Seeing New Forms and Development of the Mischtechnik.
Ihti Anderson
Ihti Anderson
The art of Ihti Anderson is unique. From one tapestry to the next, intergalactic beings mingle with undersea creatures in organic nets or polygonal webs – all aglow in ultra-violet colours against a black background.
Since 2005, he has been touring the world (with his wife and family), exhibiting his large U.V. tapestries and creating sacred spaces for festivals and tribal gatherings. Through these extensive travels, his art has evolved from psy-trance decorations to highly-detailed hieratic compositions, carefully conceived and painted on stretched canvas.
“My art can be attributed to the current flow of Visionary Art,” he says. “I think that this particular direction in art plays a very important role in the development of art and humanity in general. It’s an art that opens doors to other dimensions, into the worlds of the subconscious, expressing what is hidden from the ordinary human eye, presenting other creatures and objects that can’t otherwise be touched or explained.”
And he adds: “Visions occur to all of us – everyone can see them in a dream, in deep meditation, in prayer, or just randomly in the middle of the day. Often, the information hidden in a vision can have a very important role – not only for the specific person, but for humanity as a whole. To emphasize this, I use signs and symbols from different cultures and sacred geometry.”
Ihti Anderson is largely self-taught, developing his unique style through years and years of drawing since childhood: “I didn’t study art, but I drew all my life without really giving it much attention. At some point, I felt that a lot of knowledge had opened up inside me – as a kind of reminder of what I should do and how should I draw… So, I put away all my fears and I started doing what I truly felt in my heart. Now I have the feeling that I’ve been doing this for many lives…”
The artist uses a variety of media, from U.V acrylics on a black background to airbrushing, computer graphics and more traditional media. His activities have expanded from decoration to digital printing, performance, and producing his own line of silk-screened or hand-painted clothing.
His art is inspired by personal experience, but expands into more universal themes. From crowned three-headed deities to coiling vision serpents, from sacred madalas to fractalline matrices, his art abounds in the trance-induced imagery so unique to our times. “The works are like a history of our life, feelings, visions, experiences and the deeper understandings that we’ve had at some period in our life. By traveling around the world and exhibiting our art, we try to bring an understanding of the more important aspects of life, like Universal Law, Birth, and Love.”
For the Academy, his teachings will concentrate on developing both the artist’s technique and the powers of their imagination. “The imagination plays a very important role and, if you don’t limit yourself, it has no boundaries. The imagination gives us wings, and helps us to fly through worlds that are much broader and multidimensional than the world we see with the outer eye.”
Vera Atlantia
Vera Atlantia
The art of Vera Atlantia reflects the intimate connection to source and the deepening experience of spiritual awakening. In her work she explores themes such as divinity, healing, higher realms, unity consciousness and realizing ones true essence.
She experiences the practice of painting, writing, meditation and chanting as gateways leading to higher dimensions. During the process of creating she often enters deep states of ecstasy and transcendence, being infused with the light and bliss of the Creator.
Having experienced the healing power of creating art when being confronted with death, she was led to train as a painting therapist between 2010 and 2012. Soon after she initiated a regular painting workshop in Vienna, called ‘Soul Painter’, which emphasized painting as a tool for self-inquiry, healing & discovery.
Vera Atlantia participated twice in the Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar in Italy, where she met Professor Ernst Fuchs and the artists who subsequently formed The Visionary Guild. These encounters led to deep and transformative friendships which further contributed to her artistic development. In 2013 she was invited to work as an art teacher at the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art where she is now an integral part of the Visionary Guild, a collective of several international teachers.
In 2015, Vera Atlantia got trained as a meditation teacher and is now passing on the vedic knowledge of mantras and meditation.
Vera is currently travelling and teaching sacred art & meditation with her partner Kuba Ambrose.
Luke Brown
Luke Brown
Luke Brown is an intrepid explorer, part of a new generation of visionaries recontructing the templates of culture as we know it. His art speaks of the spiritual mysteries in the human imagination.
Mystical experiences, dreams, medicine journeys, and channelled lucid dialogues with the source of creativity itself, seem to guide and be guided by the colourful symmetries and living surfaces of his art. Much of his work emerges from a graceful synthesis of digital and painting mediums. Developing his work through mix and remix technologies, Luke Brown is constantly redefining his style as a spiritual medium for growth.
He is intent on mapping his hyperspatial experiences with utmost accuracy, with whichever medium seems best suited, as a form of multidimensional cartography. His art has been shown internationally with such visionary heavyweights such as Alex Grey, HR Giger, Robert Venosa and Ernst Fuchs.
Kevin Campeau
Kevin Campeau
“The past decade of my life has been centered on consciously and creatively exploring memory. While journeying within the inner realms, I have come across many different kinds of places containing light and dark aspects, and they have something in common – they contain what I call alchemical memory palaces. These are important transformational centers which are tools which we can use to remember ourselves and our spiritual connection with one another and the whole cosmos. They also serve as founts of creative energy, providing constant sources of inspiration.”
Born in Alberta, Canada, Kevin Campeau spent his childhood on a farm in the northern prairies where he came to discover a love for drawing, writing and shapeshifting into the different forms within his imagination. After graduating from high school he moved to Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, seeking adventure and a new landscape. It was here that he was overtaken by a sudden illness which left him nearly completely paralyzed.
After his physical recovery he moved to Quebec in Eastern Canada. Catalyzed by his experience, it was there that he began to focus reflectively into his creative process while seeking methods for spiritual inner healing. He took up meditation, which led him deeper into the practice of inner journeying (first learned in childhood) as well as automatic drawing and writing. These practices began to interweave and function as a unit. As he would meditate into his inner landscapes, inspired by vivid dreams or simply from what was arising in the moment, he would encounter archetypal spiritual guides and dialogue with them, recording these dialogues in writing and drawing.
“The imagination is a creative tool with which we can explore our world and ourselves. It contains a vast potential for growth and transformation, if one is inclined to develop it and utilize it in conjunction with the inner and outer senses. The essential aim of my work is to help myself and others to realize the inner space.”
In 2012 the artist attended The Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar in Italy, following a calling to learn painting and expand his ability to share images of his inner experiences. He then attended The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art from its inception, becoming the first graduate of its 3 year program in June of 2016. During this time he studied under nearly all of the current members of the Visionary Guild. He also began to share his experiences with self-healing, co-leading a number of workshops that transmit different aspects of his personal healing and creative practice.
Kevin Campeau is currently based in Vienna, Austria.
Laurence Caruana
Laurence Caruana
Detailed, precise, with a fine line and accomplished hand, Laurence Caruana brings a classical approach to his painting, which abounds nevertheless with fantastic, dream-like and visionary imagery. As principle instructor at the Academy, he brings many of these same qualities to his teaching, urging the student to explore both the technical and imaginative aspects of creation.
Born in Toronto Canada of Maltese descent, he graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Philosophy. To learn classical techniques of painting, he moved to Europe, studying at die Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna.
In Europe, Caruana led mostly an itinerant existence, living variously in Malta, Vienna, Munich, Monaco and Paris, while travelling extensively through Asia, Europe and Central America to enrich his passion for different sacred traditions and cultural iconographies. This passion is reflected, not only in his painting, but also in a series of books and articles, such as his erudite study into the ‘image language’ of myth, art and dreams called Enter Through the Image. Caruana also wrote and edited The Visionary Revue, an on-line journal where his highly-influential Manifesto of Visionary Art first appeared.
His art is highly mythological, exploring the interplay of different cultural symbols and styles. Classical in approach, hieratic in structure, his images vibrate with strong saturated colours.
In the year 2000 he received the invitation to work with Ernst Fuchs at the Apocalypse Chapel in Klagenfurt. It was here that he met Amanda Sage and A. Andrew Gonzalez, who were instrumental in bringing him into the Chapel project. More than a decade later, they realized that the seeds had been planted then for their joint Seminars and the Visionary Academy.
After Klagenfurt, Caruana apprenticed under Ernst Fuchs for a year, learning the Mischtechnik while working as his assistant in Monaco and Castillon. At the same time, his wife Florence Ménard worked as Fuchs’ personal assistant in arts administration.
In 2008, Caruana created The Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar, a popular painting class held in the Italian eco-village of Torri Superiore, just across the mountain from Ernst Fuchs’ studio in France. After teaching solo for two years, he invited a series of other artists to attend or co-teach, thus forming the foundations for the Academy. During the 2012 seminar, this idea was firmly set in motion, due to the inspiration of Amanda Sage and the confirmed collaboration of severak artists who had either taught or attended the seminar.
With the blessings of Ernst Fuchs, the couple of Caruana and Ménard co-founded The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art in the autumn of 2012. As Academy Director, Laurence Caruana brings his strong organizational skills but also his profound love of Visionary art to the programme. In collaboration with his colleagues, he develops the curriculum and co-teaches a number of the courses. In this way, he is able to share his Old Masters expertise while exploring new facets of painterly creation.
L Caruana has also authored several books:
– Sacred Codes: The Forgotten Principles of Painting Revived by Visionary Art
– Enter Through the Image: The Ancient Image-Language of Myth, Art and Dreams
– The Hidden Passion: A Novel of the Gnostic Christ, Based on the Nag Hammadi Texts
– A Manifesto of Visionary Art (available in English, French & Portuguese)
Laurence Caruana’s Gallery
Chris Dyer
Chris Dyer
Chris Dyer is a soul with high intentions for humanity and his self. He is a man on a quest for elevated consciousnesses through natural life experiences and introspections. A medium of the Great Spirit, who opens his vessel and tries to let go of the temporary complications of his ego-mind. A student of life and true soul skater, despite all the falls.
Chris Dyer grew up in Lima, Peru till age 17, where he was involved in 80’s skateboarding, 90’s surfing and street gang activities. He eventually moved to Canada to study art for many years. Today he is based in Montreal, where he works out of his home studio “The Positive Portal” with his awesome artist girlfriend Arianne Cardoso.
These days he also spends half of his time on the road, making and spreading his art worldwide, as he explores many cultures and himself. By now he has been able to reach over 30 different countries, which has been a chance for him to learn much from a variety of cultures. These powerful experiences has helped him create a flavour of art which fuses many cultures into a spiritual oneness of unity within diversity, which can appeal to all, yet is owned by none.
Chris Dyer’s art is rooted in the skateboard culture he has been part of since a young boy, as early as 1986, when he would draw his own board graphics. By the time he left school he focused on fine art done on broken skateboards, as to give new life to that defeated wood. That eventually led him to working in the California and worldwide skate industry, doing graphics for a variety of well respected brands. More recently, he was Art Director of California‘s Creation Skateboards, which he took to the next level with their skate video “Soul Harmonics”.
His exploration of inner worlds and ability to juggles mediums, styles and themes has made him stand out in the different art movements he is part of. Because of his unique voice, and high productivity, the artist has become one of the leading figures of the North American Visionary Art scene. This position has given him the chance to act as a bridge between that spiritual movement and less typically “conscious” art scenes he is part of like street art, and skate art. Though he apreciates the scenes he is associated with, he wants to break boxes and manifest the “Oneness” he belives is there beneath it all.
Because of the quality in Dyer’s work, it has already been exhibited in successful solo and group shows in galleries and museums around the world. He has also been featured in many magazines and books worldwide, including his own hardcover coffee table book published by Pennsylvania’s Schiffer Books. A coloring book for adults is due to be released later this year via “Last Gasp” Publications.
In 2011 he released a full feature documentary, Positive Creations, which has reached several thousands and inspired many. These days he has a series of video Webisodes called “The Artventures” which cover the different lands he visits to paint spray paint murals left and right. Chris has also been offering a variety of different Art Workshops as he travels those lands, to share what he has learned with the youth.
Other than that, Chris Dyer manages his own Art brand, Positive Creations, which offers a variety of quality apparel and artsy products. Despite all the healthy Press through the years, he is still reaching out from the underground. It is the uniqueness of his art, and a solid social media presence that has helped him find his own following. Chris’ biggest joy is to make his fans happy and to meet up with them at the different events performs at, so make sure to catch him somewhere and give him a nice hug.
A. Andrew Gonzalez
A. Andrew Gonzalez
As a recognized master in the modern technique of airbrushing, Andrew Gonzalez brings a unique painterly approach to our curriculum, coupled with a classical idealization of the human figure.
Raised in an artistic family (his artist-father encouraged an early interest in drawing and painting), Gonzalez developed his own signature style, pursuing spiritual and visionary themes in graceful, flowing forms where the female figure expresses mystical states of the soul. Through synchronistic experiences, dreams and lucid dreams, he experienced a deep creative transformation, intensifying his research into tantric symbolism, comparative mythology and the frontiers of consciousness.
In the year 2000, Andrew Gonzalez began assisting Ernst Fuchs at the Apocalypse Chapel in Klagenfurt, accompanying him on further projects in Vienna and Monaco. During this time, he also met Amanda Sage and Laurence Caruana, with whom he would collaborate years later on the Seminar and Academy.
The artist views his work as ‘a contemporary Tantric or Transfigurative Art’ that explores the dramatic union of the sensual and spiritual. This emphasis on beauty and the Neo-Platonic idealization of the human form is a classical practice which the artist hopes to teach and share with our students.
Peter Gric
Peter Gric
In the early nineties Peter Gric started to discover the possibilities of computer graphics for his paintings. From then on his organic-surreal visual imagery was enriched by complex architectural structures and artefacts. Instead of pencil and sketchbook, he began to design his compositions with 3D visualization software, transferring the virtual reality into painting and finding within this fusion his unique and distinctive style.
This method is most obvious in his Artificial Spaces Series. These paintings are based on three-dimensional geometries built with something like a “virtual building block system” and other mathematical and algorithmic concepts. The creation of these images became a play with complex spaces and perspectives in order to create normally non-accessible places in a completely artificial arrangement of space and light. By translating these virtual concepts into paint, Gric attempted to enter into those artificial spaces, and render them tactile. He sought to give them form and substance, bringing them out of their virtual state to a substantial manifestation. In addition to his Artificial Spaces, Gric also experimented with the human nude combined with mineral, technoid and architectural structures. Despite the fact that the bodies of this Mnemosyne and Gynoid Series are often dissolved and fragmented, he wittingly emphasized the erotic component. In this series his phantastic and surreal origins are most apparent.
Peter Gric was born in Brno, former Czechoslovakia in 1968 as the only child of the artist couple Ludmila and Jaroslav Gric. Already in his early childhood his parents recognized and supported his talent for drawing and painting. In the year 1980 his parents decided to emigrate to Austria, passing through Hungary and Yugoslavia. They spent a year in Edlach/Reichenau an der Rax, then moved to Linz where the artist graduated from a technical college for graphic-design.
In 1988 he came to Vienna to study in the master class of Prof. Arik Brauer at the Academy of Fine Arts – Vienna. During his studies, he participated in a number of group exhibitions and started to successfully sell his paintings. He finished his studies in 1993, earning a Masters Degree in Fine Arts. In 2009 he moved to Oberhöflein at the Hohe Wand plateau near the Eastern Alps. He has two daughters, Emilia (2002) and Natalia (2005).
In 2010 Gric began working on Concept Design for Guillermo del Toro’s film project “At the Mountains of Madness”.
He has also taught at The Academy of Fine Arts – Vienna from 2011 to 2015.
Gric‘s works are in possession of numerous private and public collections.
Lucy Hardie
Lucy Hardie
Australian born artist, Lucy Hardie, began her education at a Waldorf school that her parents built on their farm in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley, and it was here that her artistic inclinations were fostered. Surrounded by her mother and father’s extensive collection of art books, she became enchanted at an early age by the work of the Old Masters, Matthias Grünewald, Ilya Repin and the illustrations by H. J. Ford and Ivan Bilibin. Her meticulously constructed, evocative aesthetic finds its roots in their imagery.
In 2007, Hardie held her debut solo exhibition at Synergy Gallery in Melbourne, which sold out on opening night. Her work has since been exhibited throughout Australia, in Europe and the US, and is featured in numerous art and literary publications worldwide. In 2009, she travelled to Austria to commence study with US artist, Philip Rubinov Jacobson, in the ‘Mischtechnik’, an Old Masters method of painting using a combination of resin, egg tempera and oils. In 2012, she graduated from NMIT in Melbourne with a Bachelor of Illustration.
Hardie lives and works in Melbourne. Her work is represented by Port Jackson Press Australia where a select range of limited edition giclée prints of her work is available.
Mark Henson
Mark Henson
The art of Mark Henson offer a rare combination of refreshingly original imagery, technical proficiency, and inspired craftsmanship. From cosmic spirals to scenes of paradise and the lovers’ embrace, his vibrant compositions have become iconic images for an entire generation. More unique are his political works, which offer painfully true depictions of our present human predicament.
In the artist’s own words: “I believe that art can have the ability to catalyze positive social and cultural changes. In addition to stimulating our visual cortex, Art has the amazing magical power to evoke profound emotional intensity as well as to provoke intellectual thinking. My aspiration as an artist is to create compelling images of beauty and power that serve to promote our Conscious Evolution as human beings, and to show us how to live in a peaceful world. To this end I like to present images exploring themes of Awakening Consciousness, Divine Sexuality, Political Realities and Living in Harmony with Nature.”
Born and raised in Northern California, Mark Henson began his art career while still in High School, studying with then public school teachers Ken Waterstreet and Mel Ramos while working as a graphic artist for local rock music promoters.
In 1973, he graduated from the University of California with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art – and has been a professional artist ever since, working in a variety of media from paint, metal and wood to digital media (where he freelanced for a few years in the Computer Graphics industry). Although he occasionally paints in acrylics and water colour, he prefers using the traditional tools & techniques of the draftsman & oil painter. The artist has also expanded his horizons through extensive travels – in Asia, the Americas and elsewhere – enriching his artistic imagination while learning the local skills of traditional craftsmen.
For over twenty years, he has travelled the U.S with his pop-up gallery at Art Fairs and Music Festivals. Indeed, Mark Henson is one of the pioneers of Live Painting in the festival scene, and enjoys interacting with other artists in collaborative projects, whether planned or improvised.
“While I tend to be a down-to-earth person, when activating my creative energies, I begin by looking deeply within myself, and seek to express what I may find waiting there. My sincere wish is to tap into the Divine Source of Being, to Consciousness, to Spirit, or whatever you may call it – that place where existence comes from, and to bring into visual reality, images manifesting the knowledge revealed while in this presence. Strangely enough, I have discovered that the more intensely personal my vision is, the more widely it resonates when presented to the world.”
Presently Mark Henson operates Sacred Light Studio from his home in the beautiful countryside, north of San Francisco, where he lives with his lovely wife Monti, and a couple of cats. He also maintains a small artist’s retreat on an old coffee farm in Costa Rica.
David Heskin
David Heskin
David Heskin’s art reveals a combined love of random shapes and concise figures, which he brings to our curriculum through his varied teachings in free expression and Sacred Geometry.
The Colorado-born artist is largely self-taught, exploring a variety of technical approaches to express Nature’s randomness and elaborate hidden patterns. On the one hand, his mana prima technique uses water and white pigment to express the free-flow of energy, imbedding its manifold signatures in paint. On the other hand, his three-dimensional paintings explore complex geometric figures by abandoning the regular parallelogram and stretching canvas over pentagons, hexagons and even curvilinear supports. Within these multi-facetted shapes or gently-sloping surfaces he explores new worlds of fluid form and hyper-dimensional geometry.
Inspired by visions of shared creation, he co-founded Dreaming Co:Nexus, an Artist Co:laboratory which combines different artist’s visions through collaborative Live Painting events and “Art Vigils” that can last anywhere from 18 to 48 hours – the artists coming and going to keep the candle of wakefulness lit, while passing back and forth the flame of creation.
In 2010, he and his wife Aloria Weaver travelled to Europe to study the Mischtechnik with Laurence Caruana and Amanda Sage, returning in 2011 to collaborate with Caruana and deepen their studies with him. As a couple and as co-creators, “DnA” (David and Aloria) have travelled extensively throughout the US and Europe – painting, exhibiting, lecturing and publishing. They have also held numerous workshops that combine the Mana Prima and Mischtechnik. Recognizing the necessity for a conscious rebirthing of culture, they founded Art Spirit Now, an arts organization with the exhilarating declaration, “The Renaissance is Now.”
Since moving to Loveland, Colorado, he and Aloria Weaver have organized CAVA – The Colorado Alliance for Visionary Artists – and founded The Luminous Flux Gallery and Studios where they regularly hold courses on the Mischtechnik, Figure Drawing and Classical Realist approaches to drawing. The couple’s rare talent for sharing their creative process makes them a wonderful addition to the Academy faculty.
Daniel Kage
Daniel Kage
Hello, I am Daniel Kage.
I am a sacred geometer, designer and a stainless sculptor based in Vienna, Austria.
My art reflects the connection between man, nature, the Universe and the spiritual world, exploring nature’s randomness and elaborating hidden patterns through multidimensional creations.
The inspiration of my art is based in all life manifestation, in natural patterns, designs and structures from the most minuscule particles to the whole cosmos. It is dedicated to bringing the power of sacred geometry, the ancient knowledge and the majestic patterned geometric beauty of Creation to our modern world.
In 1996 my father, a remarkable metallurgic engineer who was implanting new japanese technology of stainless steel in Brazil, sent me to Japan to learn the secrets of handcrafted process of sculptures and artifacts in stainless steel with two of the best stainless sculptors in Japan, Master Nagayama from Art Factory Scape in Chiba and Master Maruyama from Maruya Kogyo in Sapporo and their teams.
There in Japan, I was always supported by Mr. Kusakabe, a wonderful man and ex-president of the Tokyo Stainless Grinding company.
Back to Brazil, I worked in partnership with numerous designers and renowned architects always giving technical solutions and support for their projects, and I started to develop my own pieces as well.
Around 2005 I started then my researches about this magnificent and unique science called Sacred Geometry. The geometry in nature that shows us the principle of oneness, the architecture of the Universe.
Through my art I try to bring to our modern world the knowledge of the ancients. They knew about everything and somehow we have lost our real connection with ancient knowledge. It is also a way to share the most beautiful experiences I ever had in my life. These built sacred shapes are part of my meditation which acts as a healing process for my inner soul. It show us the principle of oneness. Being a Sacred Geometer is a gift. I feel honored to spread this science every time I share my knowledge.
Olga Klimova
Olga Klimova
Olga Klimova brings a wealth of techniques to her teaching, from finely-detailed figures to free-flowing brushwork and vibrant colours. The Russian-born artist started painting as a direct result of deep mystical experiences, followed later in life by a practice in Vipassana meditation. Her art is the on-going attempt to re-connect with this deeper level of consciousness while sharing its blissful state of being one with the world.
After completing a classical art education in Russia, Klimova moved to New York where she created WizArt Visions, a scenography design and production studio which has developed numerous backdrops, fabric installations, U.V. paintings and stage settings for the festival scene. Coming to Visionary art through decor design, she has gained hands-on knowledge and skills in everything from large-scale compositional planning, projector use and perspective drawing to computer rendering, airbrushing and acrylics. Unity and self-reflection became the main themes of these projects, which combined symmetry, fractal patterns, portraiture and highly-saturated complementary colours to express greater dimensions of vision.
During the 2012 Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar in Italy, Olga Klimova studied egg tempera and oil glazing with Amanda Sage and Laurence Caruana. Through the deepening of her meditative practice and this completely new approach to sacred painting, her artwork became more spontaneous, intuitive and alive – with swirling organic patterns, expressive figures and a fantastic, dream-like transparency.
Her high degree of skill in the Mischtechnik led to the invitation, in June of 2013, to co-teach with Laurence Caruana during the Enter Through the Image workshop at The Omega Institute in upstate New York. Here, she had the first conscious experience of channeling her brush movements, thus becoming acutely aware of the vast potential for combining meditation with creative expression. Opening herself to the creative flow, trusting in the process, and expressing those energies in painting – all of these have became vital practices which she wishes to transmit to her students.
Today, Olga Klimova exhibits her art internationally while teaching painting and maintaining her Wizart Visions design studio. Lucid dreams, channeled visions and deep meditation continue to inspire her work, which seeks to evoke the shared feeling of our deep interconnectedness. The artist brings to our Academy a delicate sense of rendering and realistic portrayal of the figure, combined with decalcomania and the free creation of vibrant, energetic forms.
“…Putting the mind aside and trusting the flow of creation, listening to the painting and one’s own subconscious, not trying to control what’s happening and letting go – all are very useful skills not only during painting,” she says, “but in life.”
Oleg Korolev
Oleg Korolev
Oleg Korolev was born in 1968 and began painting at an early age. He entered The Studio of Classical Drawing in Vilnius at the age of eleven, then went on to study at The Crimean College of Art Named after N.S. Samokish, where he graduated in 1990 with a Diploma as Teacher of Fine Arts (painting). During his years at art college, he received a traditional Academic Education in drawing and painting. Aside from his many drawings and watercolours, the artist mostly paints in oils, carrying on the Alla Prima approach of the Venetian and Flemish masters.
“I believe that humans have a right to remember themselves as spiritual and cosmic creatures, with free souls and immortal spirits,” the artist has said.
In contrast to many of his colleagues, Korolev went on to pursue religious, spiritual and esoteric themes in his painting. At first, this alienated him from the contemporary art movements in Russia. But persistence eventually earned him recognition at home and abroad.
Within Russia, he is now recognized as both a Religious and a Visionary artist. According to an article in Empire of Spirit magazine: “A painting by Oleg Korolev… manifests itself in several spheres simultaneously. On the one hand, it is possible to consider it as an organic part of Russian art itself, created in the genre of ‘Religious Art’. …On the other hand, the paintings of Oleg Korolev belong to the 20th century Visionary art movement. …Oleg Korolev is, today, perhaps the most direct successor of the idea of a nationally-oriented Russian Modern Art, refracted through the experience of Visionary Art – one of the best masters working in a genre of the Religious picture.”
Many of his paintings pursue religious themes inspired by a contemplative spiritual practice coupled with his deep reading of scripture and theology. They are also truly ‘Russian’ paintings, inspired by the history and tradition of his homeland. “I love folk tales and sacred scriptures,” he says. “They inspire me not just as historical texts but as methods for self-cognition and for understanding energetic relationships in the present, by means of the archetypal stories they contain.”
Thus, his paintings on the subject of The Prodigal Son, St Paul or the archangel Michael delve deep into the subtle energies and spiritual states that lie at the heart of these parables, as metaphoric images of theosis or awakening to divinity. Often, his figures are bathed in an ethereal golden light, which “…actually has to do with the canonical description of the divine light,” he says, “usually depicted as as white, golden, or sometimes even a shade of blue. Most often it has been described as white with the golden hue.”
Ultimately, Korolev’s works are inspired by the mystical theology of St.Dionysius the Areopagite. His epic painting Divine Gloom manifests this negative theology, which Korolev explains: “Divine Gloom is actually an Apophatic (via negativa) term which means ‘the Divine Light’ which is inaccessible by perception. As Dionysius wrote to Dorotheus: ‘The Divine gloom is the unapproachable light in which God is said to dwell’ and ‘the most Divine Knowledge of Almighty God,’ which is known through not knowing (agnosia) because the mind stands apart from existence.”
Korolev’s contemplative art was soon recognized by Professor Ernst Fuchs, who invited him to Austria in 2004 to work in The Apocalypse Chapel of St. Egyd in Klagenfurt, where Korolev contributed his skills while also learning the Mischtechnik first-hand. Further invitations came from The Society for Art of the Imagination to exhibit in London (as well as the H. R. Giger Museum in Gruyères), and from the Galerie d’Art Visionnaire de Paris for their show EnQuête du Sacré in Paris (as well as the Chimeria International Art Festival in Sedan) where Korolev has exhibited alongside many of the Academy teachers. In 2018, Korolev himself curated the International Visionary Art Award Exhibition in the Moscow House of Artists (Moscow, Russia).
Today, the artist lives together with his family in Moscow, while travelling abroad to give workshops and exhibit his works. His art has appeared in numerous publications, and is presently held both in private and corporate art collections, from Russia and Europe to North America and Australia.
It is an honour for us to have Oleg Korolev teach at The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art and join our international faculty of teachers.
Li Lian Kolster
Li Lian Kolster
The art of Li Lian reveals the tremendous potential of painting for healing and self-transformation. Immersed in the wisdom of ancestral traditions, her highly-crafted works evoke the hidden worlds of Nature, rich in animal spirits, vegetal powers and elemental forces.
Born in the UK, the artist was equally fascinated by science and art as a child, spending many long hours making drawings inspired from nature and the imagination. At the age of eighteen, she followed the conventional path of science, earning a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biochemistry (Imperial College, London), followed by a Masters Degree in the History of Science.
Having battled with a severe clinical depression since childhood, this life-path did not provide her with the fulfillment she sought. Feeling lost and directionless, she embarked on a more exploratory journey after graduating; travelling extensively and taking up drawing again to merge her scientific curiosity with the artist’s eye for detail. To probe deeper into natural forms, she studied taxidermy, and briefly pursued scientific illustration to combine realistic rendering with the beautiful world of nature.
At the age of 28, her desolation came to a head and in a period of deep crisis crossed paths with plant medicine. This initiated a powerful healing journey which eventually led her to the Amazon where, over the course of five years, she immersed herself deeper into their ancestral traditions – spending long periods of time in the Peruvian jungle and practicing dietas to gain a more intimate connection with the spirits and worlds of different master plants, often in isolation, and integrated with regular ceremonial work.
As she slowly overcame past traumas, Li Lian felt a mounting desire to express and create – to convey the narrative of her own journey, as well as the rich world of spirit, visions and dreams that had been revealed to her. “I feel the unblocking of my creativity and my paintings are a gift from the plants, and painting serves as a tool through which we can heal. I believe that art holds tremendous power and potential for both personal transformation as well as acting as a catalyst for more universal visions,” she says.
In 2013, she transitioned from drawing to painting under the guidance of Luis Tamani. They met in the jungles of Tarapoto Peru, where she was living for eight months to pursue a shamanic apprenticeship. Tamani, it turns out, was living in the same remote village, and gradually guided her, three mornings a week, into the art of painting visions. During long periods of dieting in solitude, her art practice evolved into her own unique approach, developed under the guidance of plant spirits.
“I continue to draw inspiration from my medicine practice, from dreams, spirit animals, plant consciousness, and my deeply personal visions. My work is primarily in acrylic, in an alla prima approach that is largely intuitive – building up the painting from dark to light with soft layers of colour. I strive to achieve a balance between careful observation from Nature and the immense power of the imagination, merging the two where possible.”
Despite not having had any formal art education, she decided to follow her calling whole-heartedly and continued to immerse herself in her self-taught studies.
Her art has led to extensive travels in Europe and USA, where she exhibits regularly and performs Live Painting at festivals. Meanwhile, many of her works are still made deep in the jungle, where she continues to spend time as part of her studies into traditional Shipibo medicine.
In the winter of 2014, the artist attended a workshop by Daniel Mirante, and was slowly drawn into the world of the Vienna Academy, where she now shares her love of refined craftsmanship, combined with regular vision practice. As a teacher, Li Lian has many unique perspectives to bring to the pursuit of Visionary art.
Adam Scott Miller
Adam Scott Miller
An acute and lifelong visionary artist, ASM has intensively pursued ways of discovering and translating mystical insight into visual art.
Born and raised in central Pennsylvania, he was nurtured by family and teachers while nurturing his own self-realization towards a limitless and masterful visionary artist. Since childhood, his path as an artist was clear, as he spent great spans of time in concentration rendering his imagination into existence on paper.
Although mostly self-taught, he has an education from two of the USA’s top art schools: a BFA in Illustration from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and the Fine Arts Work Center. In addition to specialising in painting and illustration, he has developed a repertoire of digital skills.
Knowing Visionary Art to be his path – and that world-changing revelations could be communicated through the visionary method – he chose the path of heArt. This road less traveled has since become a lifelong adventure of limitless growth and dilating creativity. In 2010, he moved from America to the ancient rainforest of far-northeast Queensland, Australia where he now lives and works as a studio artist and mentor, as well as being a loving father to his two-year old daughter Maia Lily (already an inspired, focused artist).
During his creative evolution, he has explored various schools of thought and consciousness-development, combining these with profound personal experiences into his own unique vision as an artist. Throughout his artistic development, ASM has learned a vast array of principles for how we see optically, perceptually and spiritually. Uniquely, he has developed a very particular technique of creating ‘drawing/paintings’ in the “ASMethod” – an approach that combines many of his techniques into a process that is both efficiently precise and limitlessly inspirational.
“Making images is my tool for discovery, and a by-product of the experience of my consciousness. This creative work is how I process and integrate my perceptions of the world – into new ways of seeing, and new insights for living,” he says. And he adds:
“I attempt to point to the ‘numinous’, which is characterized by the quintessential qualities of the sacred: mystery, awe, fascination, satisfaction, and inspiration. In my view, art serves as a reflection of our context, and achieves its maximum potential when it acts deliberately to improve and benefit the whole. This is the intent I create with, and I hope that my work, in some way, benefits you.”
His artwork has been praised for its refined craftsmanship and elegant envisioning of his perceptions – drawn from discovering the majestic beauty of the environments around and within us. This versatile artist is equally acclaimed for his oil paintings, digital paintings, video animations, public speaking, teaching, and performances as a live-painter.
ASM is wholly enthused to be teaching and light-heartedly guiding students toward learning the “ASMethod” – integrating the most important inspirational and technical principles from his artist’s journey.
Daniel Mirante
Daniel Mirante
Daniel Mirante is a gifted painter, historian, scholar, teacher and writer – at once imaginative and articulate – who shares with students a wealth of insights into the artist’s craft. He brings to our syllabus a wide range of interests, from metaphor, symbols and allegory to traditional artist’s materials and photography, bricolage and collage as an aid for painting.
Since a young child he has held an unwavering fascination with both nature and art. In 1999 he graduated from the Manchester Metropolitan University with a B.A (Hons) in Fine Art, then completed a Diploma in Sustainable Community Development with the University of Middlesex. Initiating himself into painting in 2002, he sought instruction in 2004 from Brigid Marlin, a venerable teacher in the lineage of Ernst Fuchs. After attending and teaching at several Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminars, he began working with Ernst Fuchs in Vienna in the autumn of 2012. He then studied life drawing and sight-size method at the London Atelier of Representational Art, taught a cycle of painting and archetypal psychology workshops at Tobias School for Art Therapy, UK, pioneered and propogated visionary art in Australia, Bali and India, and taught on the first and second year of the Academy.
His interest in visionary and sacred art was and continues to be strongly influenced by intensive ceremonial work within indigenous cultures and mystical lineages. “I am driven,” the artist says, “to create icons that honor the deep ecology, and the principles and archetypes that express our union with nature and the sacred as one continuum.”
Daniel believes the circle is complete when experience is transmitted to the next generation. His teaching style is highly regarded by his contemporaries and students. exhibiting and lecturing internationally, leading workshops and holding space for collaboration, Mirante has been instrumental in spreading awareness of contemporary Sacred and Visionary Art. Daniel Mirante brings to the Academy a diverse and exploratory range of painterly approaches and a supportive approach to the creative process.
Autumn Skye Morrison
Autumn Skye Morrison
…Translucent geometries, totemic animals and dancing patterns of light; ‘heartspeak script’, energy spirals and soulful feminine figures – the art of Autumn Skye Morrison evokes transcendental realms of joyful mystery. With free and graceful brushstrokes, the artist brings her own unique touch to our teachings at the Academy. “The creation of my paintings is like a waking dream,” she says, “a dance with inspiration and colour, allowing the imagery to unveil itself as I journey through the piece.”
Born in the Maritimes on Canada’s Eastern coast, the young artist journeyed back and forth across the country many times, absorbing new landscapes and adapting to new communities, before her family settled on British Columbia’s Sunshine coast in the Yoho valley of the Rocky Mountains. Spending her seasons between the majesty of the mountains and the serenity of the ocean, she developed a deep appreciation for Nature’s primordial beauty. Today, Autumn Skye lives north of Powell River BC, working in a studio that overlooks a sweeping expanse of ocean, island, mountains and sky. Her meticulous paintings give equal emphasis to creative intuition and skilled technique, building up the composition in glaze after glaze of translucent acrylics.
Her own creative process, which she seeks to share with her students, allows the artist “to release judgment, move past our mind, breathe deep into the process, and find bliss in each step; we realize that we are boundlessly assisted in our authentic and heart-centered expression.” And she adds, “As we honor our personal creative paths, we contribute vitally to the whole through our own well-being, by inspiring those around us and encouraging them to create as well, and by manifesting visual mirrors to the light, potential, and divinity of each viewer.”
Well-recognized for her Live Painting skills, she has been featured at festivals like Envision (Costa Rica), Beloved (Oregon), Eclipse (Australia) and Alchemeyez (Hawaii) while also appearing in The Bloom Series documentary on Visionary Art: Vessels of the Divine. Autumn Skye’s works have been exhibited worldwide, as well as appearing in numerous books, magazines and online journals. Having led workshops in Canada and abroad (including the popular Soul Portraits Art Retreat in Costa Rica), she was invited to our Academy to share her creative approach and technical expertise in both the preparatory phase (drawing, subject matter) and development phase (glazing, acrylics) for an original work of art.
“Each creation,” she reminds us, “is an offering: a positive reflection of ourselves and humanity, a celebration of evolving consciousness, an opportunity for healing and deepening, a vision of a bright future and Now.”
Autumn Skye Morrison’s Gallery
Amanda Sage
Amanda Sage
As an artist, ambassador, and visionary icon, Amanda Sage brings her own unique mix of painterly wisdom and media awareness to our courses.
After graduating from the Waldorf school of Boulder Colorado, her adventurous spirit brought her first to Bali, then Vienna, eventually landing in Michael Fuchs’ studio, where Sage apprenticed for two years in the Old Master’s techniques of etching and painting. Michael Fuchs introduced her to his father, Ernst Fuchs, whom Sage began assisting on different projects in Vienna, Monaco and the Apocalypse Chapel in Klagenfurt.
In the year 2000, she was awarded a studio at the WUK (Werkstätten- und Kulturhaus), a Viennese cultural centre and artists’ collective, where Sage served as administrator and member of the board for two years, as well as organizing open studios and cultural events.
That same year she met A. Andrew Gonzalez and Laurence Caruana in Klagenfurt, working with Ernst Fuchs on the Apocalypse Chapel. Sage was instrumental in bringing the three together, thus instigating an alliance which would eventually lead to their joint seminars in Torri Superiore Italy. During the fifth Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar, Sage was again the inspiring force behind the co-founding of The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art.
The art of Amanda Sage is characterized by strong figure-work and portraiture, accompanied by energetic waves of intense colour. Each of her paintings is like a portal, opening unto infinite possibilities of seeing and expression. Amanda Sage is at the forefront of a new breed of visionary artists, using art as a tool for personal, spiritual and planetary transformation.
An adept of Live Painting, she now tours the world, delivering lectures, holding workshops and painting live while exhibiting her works. In June of 2014, Amanda Sage will lead our Spring Intensive, allowing students to ‘Free their Expression’ through live painting and collaboration. She will also lead the Drawing section of the 2015 Spring trimester, sharing her knowledge of design and thematics in the development of a painting.
Joseph Skala
Joseph Skala
Joseph Skala has created his own unique style combining finely detailed representations of figures and objects with cosmic flowing energetic patterns of light. His dream-like art carries with it esoteric symbolism and mythical icons of divine spiritual beings. The depth in his use of color creates a sense of Old World Classical art. The architecture, the mystical creatures, and the human forms he creates on stretched canvas live in harmony with the misty swirling landscapes.
Joseph blends the metaphysical and physical realms into one; Drawing inspiration from the structures of sacred temples and the vibratory ripples of energy that flow through all life forms. This common thread in Joseph’s art invites the viewers to tap into their imagination – to peer into the great mystery of the universe – and to remember that there are infinite realities within ourselves.
“As a self-taught artist, I want to share the inspiration that flows through me. Art has impacted my life in many great ways, it is one of our greatest tools for telling the story of our evolution and transforming our own consciousness. I want to expand the ways art can change lives and transform and unite evolution physically, mentally, and emotionally.”
Joseph practices this philosophy in his life and in his art.
He finds his way by crystallizing vision onto canvas which is directly linked and related to everything else he’s ever done and seen. All of it is a reflection of his relationship with himself on a path of introspection.
Oil paints are Joseph’s chosen medium for bringing these otherworldly visions to life.
Inspired by old world masters, he utilizes a variety mediums and methods to achieve buttery smooth polished-stone-like finishes. Josephs first painting medium was watercolor which carries a heavy influence in his oil painting now. The love he had for the glowing luminosity achieved through watercolor painting has influenced Joseph to relay a similar more archival effect with the much more open and malleable oil paint.
Joseph’s fascination with architecture ties into his pursuit of some of the greatest mysteries of our time. Growing up in southwestern Colorado, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, near the ancient ruins of the Anasazi sparked an early interest in archeology. Upon finding out how little is actually known about the timelines of human evolution, he concluded that it goes far beyond what we’ve been taught as common knowledge. This mystery inspires him to use ancient architecture, Sacred geometry, and thin glaze layers to create depth and dimension in his art while hoping to invoke these questions and fundamental human emotions in the viewer.
Joseph currently lives upcountry Maui where he is developing his art and finding vast inspiration in the awe inspiring beauty of Hawaii. He is seeking ways to reach out and offer his art as a way that will make the world a more peaceful, beautiful, and harmonious place.
Jonathan Solter
Jonathan Solter
Jonathan Solter is an artist living and working in the Bay Area.
Growing up in the redwood forests of Northern California, he started making art at an early age with the loving support of his family. This began with mazes and labyrinths, leading to the creation of new worlds from both his imagination and the natural environment; and turning more towards Psychedelic art after high school.
He then studied a variety of techniques at The California College of Arts, in both the Oakland and San Francisco campuses, before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Illustration in 2011. His career in art began with freelance illustration work and the creation of murals in the Bay Area, parallel with teaching mural painting for a non-profit called ArtStart in Santa Rosa, Ca.
Soon after, Jonathan Solter became a performance artist in the Bay Area, doing Live Painting and working full time in nightclubs. This quickly transitioned into music festivals around the world, bringing his unique brand of art and Live Painting to thousands of festival-goers and art enthusiasts.
In 2014, the artist became involved with the Phaneros Art Collective, now a mobile art gallery that focuses on bringing Psychedelic art to the world. In collaboration with other artists from around the country, he has been painting large-scale murals at festivals and events for the last three years.
Today, Jonathan Solter’s artwork specializes in unique psychedelic forms such as higher dimensional travel, ancient civilizations and animism. His surreal scenes, beautifully-depicted in glowing colors, hold resonance with psychonauts and transcendental meditators alike.
Mark Lee
Mark Lee – Somnio 8
Growing up in rainy valleys of South Wales, Mark Lee spent a lot of time alone, drawing from the deep pools of the imagination. His sketchbooks became a powerful obsession, as characters and entire worlds emerged through the freeplay of thought. This impetus to create new worlds carried him on to Art College where he completed a degree specializing in Classical 2D Animation. Here, he could fully explore the nature of motion, synesthesia, gesture and expression – delving deeper into the subtle and metaphysical aspects of reality.
During this time he also discovered meditation, Sacred Geometry and especially Lucid Dreaming: “I went deep into the inner realms, discovering the vividly rich and rewarding nature of the human imagination, with its archetypal and psychedelic realms. These early explorations into Lucid Dreaming allowed me to see how we create our realities, how surrendering in gratitude can carry us into a most beautiful and paradoxical dialogue with the Superconscious that exists within all sentient beings, and how we can anchor this creative power into our waking reality.”
After college, he entered the Video Game industry, learning low polygonal modelling and animation. At the London Studio of Sony Computer Entertainment, he helped develop the Eye Toy, the first Augmented Reality (AR) application to use ‘computer vision’ image processing. For the next four years, he created over twenty concepts for AR games (in PlayStation 3) of which one, EyePet, was accepted for development and eventually released in 2010. The main character was designed by Mark Lee, who infused the project with great heart and feeling. But the artist quickly became disillusioned with the commercial and profit-based strategies of the Game industry.
The London Bombings of 2005 came as a great wake-up call. Forfeiting the potential profits and royalties of his London job, he resigned and dedicated his savings to a spiritual pilgrimage, landing first in Egypt (where he explored the Hollow Earth Theory) and then onto the Americas. On the west coast, he met ‘The Fungineers’ a band of beatboxing puppeteers. “It was like running away with the circus. They swept me up into having the childhood I never had. For four years I became immersed in the world of festival culture… My earlier Lucid Dreaming aspects finally had a platform to breath. I continued to explore the plant spirits of the world, and met many other inspirational Visionary artists – seeing the higher virtues of what we, as creators, should be focusing on…”
Under the name of Somnio 8, Mark Lee continued to fill sketchbooks with new ideas and designs, translating the more interesting ones into the digital realms of art. In Bali, the artist found his artistic and spiritual home. Combining his computer knowledge with the skills of local Balinese craftsmen, he began to 3D print and fashion new inventions. “When I really saw the potential of these virtual tools to dream and manufacture any idea, the question I was now faced was: what is the highest aspiration for humanity?”
An invitation from Casey James Carlson to tour China revealed new vistas and possibilities for ‘virtual visioneering’ – using 3D software to build and showcase ideas in Virtual and Augmented Reality, such as manufacturing prefabricated domes and pyramids, or developing new eco and food systems.
“Today I am here in Bali,” he writes, “in this amazing synchronic state where I find myself researching amazing fringe sciences such as Biogeometry, Radionics and Shape Power over unity vortex entities. To pre-visualize and prototype our inventions, I’m forming a group of talented and highly magical imagineers called Epinoia. We aspire to anchor in the timeline the incredible potentials of the human imagination; to create, share and build the brightest of futures, all in the furthermost of the human condition.”
Mark Lee brings to the Academy a rich variety of talents – the power of rendering ideas and designs in quick pencil sketches, then translating those designs via computer rendering into more elaborate creations through scanning and refining, reprinting and redrawing. These, in turn, may be virtually augmented and realized into 3D models for printing or sculpting – allowing the artist to explore whole new vistas of vision and creation.
Liba W. Stambollion
Liba W. Stambollion
Liba was born to American parents but grew up in South East Asia.
In her teenage years, she moved to the USA, where she lived a period of for 15 years. In 1988 she graduated with a Bacherlor of Fine Arts degree and a Teaching Certificate in the Arts. After several years of teaching (at The Art Institute of Chicago, among others) and honing her wood-working skills, Liba and her husband founded a furniture design company called Matahati in 1992.
In 1993, she moved to Paris France, where she still lives today – painting, writing, making books and designing furniture. Ecology, Erotica and the Sacred are the recurrent themes in her work.
After having discovered the Visionary family, she returned to exhibiting and has since done around 60 exhibits and events in prestigious galleries, cultural centers and museums around the world.
In 2012, Liba founded Dreams and Divinities, a project which unites international Visionary, Fantastic and Surrealist artists in the name of beauty, community and love. The project showcases an eclectic mix of creativity through the publication of original books and the organization of international exhibitions in galleries, historical sites and museums.
Liba’s furniture designs, poems, paintings and interviews have been featured in books, television and a variety of articles both online and in print.
Timea Tallian
Timea Tallian
As a professional Art Conservator, Art Technological Researcher and Visionary artist, Timea Tallian brings her in-depth knowledge of historical artists’ methods and materials to the Academy.
Born in Vienna, she graduated from The Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with a Master degree in Painting and Conservation. Tallian then worked for several museums and art related institutions worldwide as conservator, researcher and teacher (The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Royal College of Art, and The British Museum in London; The Academy of Fine Arts, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Austrian National Library, and Natural History Museum in Vienna).
After finishing a four-year MPhil research degree in 2007 at The Royal College of Art in London (exploring the practical reconstruction of 17th century painting materials and the alchemy of paints), she became involved in Art Technological Research, publishing papers and giving talks at various conferences.
In 2008 she was employed by the Austrian Government to train monks in conservation and historic artist techniques in the Himalaya Kingdom of Bhutan (Trongsa Dzong Museum project). During her eight-month stay, she had the unique opportunity to study Thangka painting with Lopon Sangay Rinchen (head-painter of the Trongsa Dzong Monastary).
These experiences inspired artworks that uniquely combine Renaissance techniques and Tibetan Iconography. Tallian also lectures on Thangka painting and holds workshops at the Shang Shung Institute UK (The London School of Tibetan Studies).
2009 till 2011 Tallian taught courses on artist materials and techniques at the Royal College of Art in London.
Although Tallian’s work reflects a thorough knowledge of historic techniques, in her recent paintings she also explores new media, particularly the air brush (under the initial guidance of A. Andrew Gonzalez).
Then, in 2012, she lectured on artists’ methods and materials at The Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar and was invited to become a permanent member of The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art. In Fall, 2012 she also began assisting Professor Ernst Fuchs at his Atelier in the Palais Palffy.
Due to her rich knowledge of historical painting techniques, Tallian makes an ideal teacher for our Mischtechnik courses.
Rebecca Yanovskaya
Rebecca Yanovskaya
Rebecca Yanovskaya is a freelance illustrator working in the fantasy, sci-fi and horror genres. She frequently illustrates mythological stories, natural forces, and aesthetically strong characters.
Her influences include decorative arts, neoclassical and Pre-Raphaelite arts, and theatrical costuming. Despite most artists in her genre using digital and traditional painting tools, she has made the choice to construct her pieces with ballpoint pen and gold leaf. As one of the only primarily ballpoint pen artists working in fantastic realism, her work is easy to identify. A combination of epic scope and moody atmosphere define her signature style, in what can be described as the “Art of the Sublime”.
Rebecca is a graduate of the Illustration program at Sheridan College. She lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
Aloria Weaver
Aloria Weaver
Equally skilled in the Fine Arts and the Healing Arts, Aloria Weaver brings to our Academy a unique integration of these two time-honoured traditions.
Born in Western New York, she studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and the State University of New York, learning bronze metal casting, ceramic sculpture, etching and printmaking before specializing in classical techniques of painting.
A natural aptitude for the Healing Arts led Weaver to the New York Institute of Massage, where she emerged as a licensed Massage Therapist in 2003. Thus, her interest in the human figure progressed from formal studies in life drawing, anatomy and physiology to a more practical and ‘hands on’ approach to the body’s innate capacity for healing and expression.
In her art, Weaver explores the geometry of sacred forms, the armature of sacred space, and their integral relationship to the human figure. The highest role of an artist, she believes, is to become a healer, a visionary, and an intermediary between the realms of divinity and humanity.
With her husband, the artist David Heskin, she co-founded the cultural arts organization Art Spirit Now and the collaborative arts collective Dreaming Co:Nexus. Together, they travelled to Europe to study the Mischtechnik with Laurence Caruana and Amanda Sage, eventually deepening their knowledge of this technique with Caruana on another extended stay in Burgundy, France. The couple has travelled extensively across Europe and the USA – painting, exhibiting, giving lectures and holding workshops.
After relocating to Loveland Colorado, they opened The Luminous Flux Gallery and Studios, where they regularly organize exhibitions and hold courses on a variety of topics in Classical Realist and Visionary approaches to art.
Administration
Florence Ménard
Florence Ménard
In her capacity as Managing Director and Head of Communications, Florence Ménard is able to combine many years of professional experience with a deep appreciation of Visionary Art.
Born two hundred kilometres outside of Paris in Le Mans (France), she obtained a university degree in Business Management at l’École de Gestion et de Commerce, Le Mans, then studied Art History at l’École du Louvre in Paris. With professional experience in England and Germany, she is a fluent speaker of French, English and German.
In the year 2000, she became Ernst Fuchs’ personal assistant, co-ordinating operations between the Monaco-based studio and the Vienna-based villa and foundation. Without knowing that she would be an artist herself one day, was she closely observing the way Fuchs and her husband were painting in the Mischtechnik, and Fuchs trusted her to work on some of the designs of his massive frames. It’s also during that time that she translated Laurence Caruana’s Manifesto of Visionary Art into French.
Upon her return to Paris, she began a long career in Communications, specializing as a Press Liaison and Events Manager in the Arts. With clients as diverse as the Grand Palais, the Musée du Luxembourg, and the French Ministry of Culture, she promoted major exhibitions (Botticelli, l’École de Barbizon), art fairs (Art en Capital) and book releases (Rodin, Klimt, Schiele) to French journalists in television, radio and the press.
Working both in agencies and freelance, her more interesting projects included the Ministry of Culture’s Awards for Master Crafstmen (Maîtres d’Art) and the Cathedral of Nevers’ inauguration of its new stained glass windows. She has also worked for la Galerie d’Art Visionnaire de Paris and Chimeria: Festival des Arts Visionnaires, Sedan, promoting Visionary art to the French media.
In her capacity as co-founder of The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art, Florence Ménard is able to combine many years of professional experience with a deep appreciation of Visionary Art. Florence Ménard’s strong organizational skills are a great asset to the Academy while her experience in Communications is ideal for promoting classical education in a new genre of art. She also uses her years of experience to teach students ‘the ins and outs’ of how the Art Media works, during our year-end course on Artist Promotion.
Inspired by all the Visionary Artists around her, she decided to start painting in 2013 during the Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar that she had co-organized with her husband Laurence Caruana, just before they created The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art. Something magical happened with the brush, and she’ll always remember that feeling. Since then, she hasn’t stopped painting and deeply exploring her inner world, while managing the Academy. Hence her motto “it’s never too late to start painting!”
She’s learning a lot about techniques and creativity from the teachers and students. Thanks to a former student, Kevin Campeau, who’s wide inner world led him to teach „Inner Journeying“, Ménard absorbed this method for herself and is now regularly leading the students of the Academy through Inner Journeys. This method helps them dive deep into their own inner world, discovering the images that are deep inside their heart, in the „non-ordinary world“ and bringing them back into this „ordinary world“. Ménard started painting with 41 years old and always encourages people to try it out and believe in themselves.
Her paintings have already been exhibited in France (Chimeria, Sedan), England (House of Alchemy, Brighton), Austria (Homage an Ernst Fuchs, Wien), Columbia (Aguaniles, Water Wisdom Convergence), Russia (Visionary Art Award and Visionary Art Trip), and Spain (Visionarium Festival).
Honorary Director
Ernst Fuchs
Ernst Fuchs
(From the Ernst Fuchs Zentrum website): The universal artist from Vienna, Austria became world famous as graphic artist, painter, sculptor, designer, stage designer, architect, composer and poet. He created a gigantic number of etchings and an equal comprehensive amount of oil paintings and aquarells. In the chapel of parish church St.Egid in Klagenfurt he created monumental frescos to the Apocalypse of John. Beside numerous small-scale sculptures and reliefs Ernst Fuchs created a huge number of life-sized and larger than life-sized sculptures. He designed furniture, tiles, porcelain, jewellery, medallions, tapestry, carpets, fabrics and also costumes and stage decorations for Parsifal, Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde, the Magic Flute, Hoffmanns Narratives The Bat and The Golem. Various substantial building projects like a hotel in St. Veit an der Glan or a church at “Thal bei Graz”, Austria and a number of glass mosaic fountains were built after his designs. He composed operas and produced a number of records and CD´s. Ernst Fuchs wrote poems, children’s books und fairy-tales, illustrated numerous books, for example, the Bible, and wrote theoretical works about art- and architecture, as well as an autobiography.
He was in contact with important artists of his time like Dali, Hundertwasser and Leonard Bernstein.
His undisputed best known work is his own museum; a Villa in Vienna built by Austrian architect Otto Wagner, which he transformed into a fantastic Fuchs museum. Here the visitor will find a representative cross-section of Ernst Fuchs’s work. In the area surrounding the house he created a marvellous sculpture park, where an exceptional well house with basin of a fountain built by the artist out of glass mosaic is situated.
Ernst Fuchs was not only commonly known through his outstanding and versatile talent as an artist, his life was totally unconventional and coined by constant ups and downs. He spent his childhood and adolescent years as underdog chased by the NS-regime in poverty, acquired enormous wealth in the 1970s, lost everything but regained everything soon later. For some time he lived and painted in a monastery, and fathered before and after this time sixteen children with seven wives. His family car was in the 1960s a tiny Puch-Fiat and in the 70s he owned a golden Rolls Royce Phantom, which he fitted with his own intarsia and painted ceiling. Muses, models and lovers always surrounded him.
Extremes determined his life and work. God, Eros, knight, death and the Devil! The genius always moves between extremes and even as a83-year-old man does not come to rest. He always was unloved and not understood by a lot of people, but he has got a big family and a worldwide fan community. Three generations of artists all around the world are already his students and artistic successors.
Ernst Fuchs’ Gallery