Customer Reviews

Robert Venosa Illuminatus

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ILLUMINATUS is an unprecedented publishing feat.

"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. Have you ever taken a journey to a "separate reality" via ayahuasca or magic mushrooms or some such sacrament and wish you could bring back a snapshot or reconstruct an image from your visionary experience? I have, but cameras are not allowed on these trips, only the mind's eye, and I am left fantasizing about having the talent of a great painter, such as ROBERT VENOSA. Venosa is an artist of high accomplishment and much of his work reflects images of his inner mindscapes. His new book, ILLUMINATUS, further defines the genre of Fantastic Realism (Surrealism, Visionary, Hypo-realism, Psychedelic). With comments and essays by a host of illuminated mentors and/or contemporaries, ILLUMINATUS is simply a mind-expanding book. "Those artists, such as Venosa, who gain access to visionary states, captivate us through their eternal imagery to fall under a spell of that reality." - Ernst Fuchs.

But Venosa's visionary reflections are but one aspect of his broad talent and subject matter. His portraits have a photo-realism mixed with spirit that instills life on his canvases. He uses his photorealisms "...to lure us through its `reality' into his own inner world of swirling and seraphic energies....Venosa...learned the tempera and oil glazing technique... from yours truly in New York and...Ernst Fuchs in Vienna, and opted to perfect it in a state of mind of jewel-like clarity." - Mati Klarwein

Venosa's realism, like an hallucination, is astonishing. I confess there have been times I touched his artwork, expecting to feel something that wasn't there. On one occasion I thought somehow water had spilled onto a painting and I dabbed the drops with a tissue. Another time I was compelled to feel the raised texture of DNA molecules. Both times I was fooled! Speaking of touching, H. R. Giger writes, "I would be delighted to experience one of these images in three-dimensional form and to touch these ethereal figures and faces with my hands....", and again, "The biggest thrill would be to touch this imaginary cool, smooth surface."

Tantamount to Venosa's extraordinary art is the accompanying text by none other than TERENCE MCKENNA, art historian, writer, and leading spokesperson for the myriad explorers of mind altering substances. Move over Aldous, Terence has reached the stature of the most articulate psychonauts the world will ever know. Needless to say, his talent for word crafting is par excellence and his text in ILLUMINATUS is as illustrious as Venosa's artwork.

As Lewis and Clark explored our western frontier and returned with sketches and notes, Venosa and McKenna each explored our ultimate frontier, the wilderness of mind. Explorer/artist extraordinaires, they return from their travels in our noosphere and now meet to commingle their elaborate work with brush and pen to bring us a volume the nature and calibre of which has never before been published.

ILLUMINATUS is destined to be a classic.

Richard T. Carey

Herein lie pages that showcase the inner workings of your mind and the universe about you.

Scintillating, neural expansive designs capture color magically and tempt your momentary perception into conceiving things beyond normalcy. Bursting, exploding stimuli of bliss play with your perceptual faculties in a manner as powerful as the most forbidden psychoactives.

Haunting creatures and beckoning intergalactic sights draw you into a psychedelic feast for the mind. Visual art can push us into the recognition that the entire world is gorgeous. Venosa does this with rare style and unparalleled mastery of his medium.

Where the organic meets the technological and where the science meets the sexes is the land that these amazing works foster.

Venosa hints at how things could really be if and when we discover what it is that DNA is all about.

Be ready for Venosa to continue to show us the way!

Filled with insight and knowledge. The works in this book are worth returning to again and again, not to be missed.

Venosa's content and technique transport me to a place of looking at my deeper self and seeing the facets of others innards with new and curious eyes. The art and the text give pure enjoyment and much to chew on whenever one wants to take a bite. The "movable feast" description aptly identifies this book of work. It is something that has a direct effect on the senses and ones depth. You know it is effecting you,sometimes you know how,sometimes you just know. This is one of those things you want have around to experience when you wish and to be able to reexperience at will. I have found the enjoyment builds and deepens with exposure and time. Everyone has different tastes and preferences,it seems to me whatever you want or need is in this work somewhere.

This book is worth every penny. The quality of the book is fantastic and the artwork inside will blow you away.