28 m a p s • v o l u m e X n u m b e r 3 • c r e a t i v i t y 2 0 0 0

Illuminated Manuscript Reviewed by Robert Venosa’s Illuminatus Richard T. Carey

To make art is to draw even with the aspirations of divinity. To make art well is to call spirit into being. Magicians, like Venosa, know this. — Terence McKenna

AVE YOU EVER taken a journey to a “separate Venosa’s realism, like a hallucination, is astonishing. reality” via ayahuasca or magic mushrooms or I confess there have been times I touched his artwork, Hsome such sacrament and wish you could bring expecting to feel something that wasn’t there. On one back a snapshot or reconstruct an image from your occasion I thought somehow water had spilled onto a visionary experience? I have, but cameras are not allowed and I dabbed the drops with a tissue. Another on these trips, only the mind’s eye, and I am left fantasiz- time I was compelled to feel the raised texture of DNA ing about having the talent of a great painter, such as molecules. Both times I was fooled! Speaking of touching, Robert Venosa. Venosa is an artist of high accomplish- H. R. Giger writes, “I would be delighted to experience one ment and much of his work reflects images of his inner of these images in three-dimensional form and to touch mindscapes. His new book, Illuminatus, further defines these ethereal figures and faces with my hands…,” and the genre of Fantastic Realism (, Visionary, again, “The biggest thrill would be to touch this imaginary Hypo-realism, Psychedelic). With comments and essays cool, smooth surface.” by a host of illuminated mentors and/or contemporaries, Tantamount to Venosa’s extraordinary art is the Illuminatus is simply a mind-expanding book. “Those accompanying text by none other than Terence McKenna, artists, such as Venosa, who gain access to historian, writer, and leading spokesperson for the states, captivate us through their eternal imagery to fall myriad explorers of mind-altering substances. Terence has under a spell of that reality.” — Ernst Fuchs. reached the stature of one the most articulate psychonauts But Venosa’s visionary reflections are but one aspect the world will ever know. Needless to say, his talent for of his broad talent word crafting is par and subject matter. excellence and his text in His portraits have a Illuminatus is as illustrious photo-realism mixed as Venosa’s artwork. with spirit that Venosa and McKenna instills life on his each explore our ultimate canvases. He uses frontier, the wilderness of his photo-realisms mind. Artists/explorers “…to lure us extraordinaires, they through its ‘reality’ return from their travels into his own inner in the noosphere and world of swirling now meet to commingle and seraphic their elaborate work with energies…Venosa… brush and pen to bring us learned the tempera a volume the nature and and oil glazing calibre of which has technique…from never before been yours truly in New published. Illuminatus is York and…Ernst destined to be a classic. • Fuchs in Vienna, and opted to perfect it in a state of mind of jewel-like clarity.” — Mati Klarwein ROBERT VENOSA ILLUMINATUS book cover featuring SCHEHERAZADE, 1997 oil on canvas, 44 x 55 cm m a p s • v o l u m e X n u m b e r 3 • c r e a t i v i t y 2 0 0 0 29

ROBERT VENOSA PRANA EXHALATION, 1985 oil on canvas, 70 x 55 cm