Voyeur of the Void: Paintings by Ryan Browning.

Via Prism of Threads

Doctor Ilusion and Contact the Star People: Two Films by Larry Carlson.

 

Larry Carlson is a very eclectically talented multi-media artist who produces DEEPLY trippy audiovisual collages.  His best work fuses cartoons, found ephemera, washes of psychedelia, and metaphysical schlock into what feels like a full-on deep-sea dive into the collective unconscious.  Here are two video art pieces to give a you a taste of his work; the second, Contact the Star People, is probably my favorite.

DOCTOR ILLUSION from Larry Carlson on Vimeo.

CONTACT THE STAR PEOPLE from Larry Carlson on Vimeo.

Visit THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF LARRY CARLSON HERE.

The Mind-Bending Visionary Art of Mati Klarwein.

I was aware of Mati Klarwein's work though its use as iconic cover art for Bitches Brew, but never put a name to the artist until recently.  Klarwein was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1932, and studied art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, eventually encountering something of a mentor figure in Ernst Fuchs in Saint-Tropez.  After travels in various far-flung places from Tibet to North Africa, Klarwein washed up in New York city in the early 60s, where he befriended Jimi Hendrix.

Although he did experiment with a little with LSD, Klarwein claims that psychedelic drugs had a minimal influence on his art.  Indeed, the Force was naturally so strong with Klarwein that he may have been the only person in history whom Timothy Leary thought DIDN'T need psychedelic drugs.  Looking at his work, I'm inclined to agree with that diagnosis.  Klarwein's artwork experienced wide exposure during the 70s, especially after Miles Davis commissioned him to design the cover for his fusion masterpiece Bitches Brew.  In this surreal and hilarious interview, Klarwein describes his entry into the weird headspace of the Milesverse circa '69 (listen here.)

Klarwein passed away in 2002.   His webpage has a fantastic selection of otherworldly gems to browse through, and is well worth a trip - Mati Kerwwein Website.  (Click images to enlarge.)

via feuilleton

Rene Magritte: The voice of space

I've always been fascinated by images that appear weirdly prescient or out of time.  If I encountered the following painting by Rene Magritte without context, I'd swear blind it was a prog rock album cover from the early 70s, or some obscure illustration from a UFO book from the same period.  Definitely early 70s - it has that very British pastoral psychedelic feel to it.  In reality, however, the image was completed in Paris in 1928.  This would add to the contention I was beginning to voice in a previous post that "surrealism, weird fiction, and the later psychedelic movement are the separate strands of a single cultural history which all emerged out of the same basic appetites, and which all converged, by their separate routes, on the same essential mental terrains and vistas."

Which is as good a time as any to post an excerpt from Mike Oldfield's 1973 performance of Tubular Bells for the BBC.  Not a huge Oldfield fan admittedly, but this footage rocks and just oozes the ambience of the period:

Magritte image from wikipaintings

full Mike Oldfield performance here