The other piece of news is that I am now a listed artist on artnet, and this means that my art will be available on auctions next to Picassos and so forth. Albeit in a slightly different price range.

I met with a young Mexican artist and agent and he invited me to join his group of artists, which is supposed to lend me shows in Mexico City and also sales to new collectors.

Finally, I met and had a long talk with a professional curator. We discussed one of my paintings and he got it right on, all of the symbolic meaning. (Well to be honest, he was right on but then overanalyzed) Anyway, he is including me in a virtual exhibition in Mexico City and promised to curate a show for me. As well as possible connections in Mexico City and in Paris.

I am working on large pieces and on digital works for prints.

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I’ve been mostly working on small and medium sized works, and mostly from nature. As long as what I am creating has some novelty and is moving forward, I am happy. And I can honestly say that the works I am creating now are novel and different in some aspects from previous work.

I’ve also been working on my second book, which is right now at about 25%, but depending on inspiration could be finished quickly. The other 75% is almost entirely written already, in notebooks. It’s just the matter of getting those notes into a computer and then editing and so forth.

I also have framed most of my paintings. If anyone is interested in purchasing any of my work, I will give 20% off this month only, and 30% off when buying 2 or more paintings.

Ancha San Antonio – 20 x 25 cm – $260

Balloon over San Miguel – 20 x 25 cm – $240

Bandera Courthouse – 15 x 20 cm – $200

Pena Bernal – 20 x 25 cm – $220

Cats On The Table – 20 x 25 cm – $250

San Miguel Church – 30 x 30 cm – $320

Contemplation – 15 x 20 cm – $220

Dog With Bones – 30 x 30 cm – $220

Horse And Kids – 30 x 30 cm – $350

Nude In Bed – 20 x 25 cm – $260

Red Hills – 15 x 20 cm – $160

Refugio Camping – 15 x 20 cm – $220

White Cat – 20 x 20 cm – $220

Yellow Cat – 35 x 40 cm – $360

Young Man – 20 x 25 cm – $260

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Take a look at them here:

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My 2000 I was also playing and composing music… I played a lot with my friend Ben. We just jumped into it without knowing anything about music, never having taken any classes or even played any instruments. I played the drums and he played electric. We made heavy metal music.

Around the same time, my parents bought a piano and I taught myself to play that. No sooner did I learn a few chords that I was composing. I learned guitar in about 2002. My roommate had one, and I taught myself to play it. Really, I didn’t think I’d ever play it decently, but as soon as I knew two chords, I was already composing.

Except for special occasions, a day rarely goes by without me writing a song, creating a painting, or writing creatively. More common is working on several paintings, writing several songs, and coming up with many fresh ideas.

When it comes to writing, I was pretty seriously committed to writing down my meditations on various philosophical and existential topics while studying at University. I have about 200 pages of notes about Korea, including a daily diary of my dreams over a period of three months. My notes from 8 months in Peru were edited and published as the book “Shamans and Healers.”

My painting career began in 2005. Again, I jumped into it without even knowing what acrylics were, what pastels were – or anything about art, for that matter. I had never taken an art course in my life, but I knew that it was my destiny to become a painter. I began buying little 80-page sketchbooks and filled maybe 8 of them with drawings over a period of about 4 months. Then, I moved on to pastels, then to acrylics.

In 2005-2006, I made ink drawings on a daily basis, usually one per day. They required intense concentration and brought me much satisfaction. I must also say that the style of my ink drawings was quite unlike anything I had every seen before.

By 2007 my drawing slowed down, and most of my artistic efforts became focused on painting. I worked part time and painted every day without fail, which resulted in about 1 painting every two weeks.

In 2008-2009, I worked as an Art Healing counsellor and learned a lot about the therapeutic value of art. I held sessions with children and teenagers on a nearly daily basis and it was an incredible experience. The second half of 2009 was education in the hands-on, practical sense. I visited Ireland, Paris, and the Ukraine, before moving on to Peru, where I presented at the 5th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference. There, I met the late Pablo Amaringo, was interviewed for some Latin American TV show, and became deeply involved in Amazonian Shamanism.

In 2011, after exploring most of Mexico, I settled down in the beautiful colonial town of San Miguel de Allende. There, I became a full-time artist. The period between 2011 and 2013 had been one of the most creative periods of my life. In San Miguel de Allende, I met many important and very talented artists, and spent many hours in discussion with them. I also wrote extensively on visual art, invented new techniques, explored many mediums and had numerous exhibitions in local galleries. My artwork was very well received and is now in many important collections around the world.

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I wrote to a Ukrainian contemporary art association in Chicago about displaying my work and they responded that my work is too traditional. Never thought that I would be told something like that, but oh well. I have always done and will continue to do only that which I consider good and worthy of my time.

I do have a number of criticisms regarding so called modern art. First, a lot of it is morbid, dead, and depressing. It’s very easy to slip into that and make morbid art. By far easier than making something positive and uplifting. Second, a lot of it is merely intellectual, and a lot is blindly rebellious. Because the tradition was to put the subject into the center of a painting, some painters simply make a point to never do that. Or no not have a subject at all. Or to blindly do other things that go against the tradition instead of focusing on their art. It’s like a child saying “you told me to wash my hands before eating and so I’m never going to wash my hands before eating, just to show you that I am contemporary”.

I had never studied anything about art except on my own, and very informally. But knowing very little if anything about composition, rule of thirds, golden mean, etc, I created works from the very beginning that looked like I was aware of all of the formal things in art composition. Therefore, my logic is that if that is how I naturally did it, there must be something to it. It’s not to be rejected just because it is traditional. That is silly.

Anyway, I have an exhibition with Toller Cranston at his studio towards the end of March. Should be great.

I am also working on my second book, which will probably be called “from darkness to light” or something like that.

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Since returning, I mostly focused on completing and retouching older works, but had also started and completed several new pieces. My latest area of focus is flowers, which I am doing from nature. This involves buying beautiful bouquets of flowers which I arrange and select myself and then painting them. It is so incredibly rewarding to see and reproduce the beauty of nature. The wow factor of these new paintings is very high. To me they look like Gustav Klimt works. I haven’t seen anything on the market even approximating the quality of execution I am getting. I am also framing a lot of things in preparation for upcoming exhibitions. And that is about it, folks.

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The new photos I will be adding are of the works completed in the last year of so (small works) and the recent (2-3 months) large works.

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