Hyperspace Studios - Newsletter

We have just returned from New York where we participated in a visionary tattoo art event at Alex Grey's Chapel Of Sacred Mirrors (www.alexgrey.com). Alex, his wife Allyson(AllysonIntro.jpg) and their crew hosted this amazing event, which began on Friday, April 21 with a panel discussion featuring Guy Aitchison, Michele Wortman, Paul Booth, Filip Leu, Titine Leu and Sabine Gaffon(panel.jpg), moderated by Alex Grey (AlexMod.jpg). All of these artists can be found on our Links page. The discussion ranged throughout a spectrum of topics about the deeper aspects of tattooing and its power of vision fulfillment, while work in various mediums by all 6 artists was displayed on the screen behind them. Alex began the evening by showing images of tattoos done by various artists of his paintings(AlexTattoo.jpg). The hall was filled to capacity with a crowd from all walks of life, including of course many tattooists and tattoo collectors, but also many visionary art fans who were curious about the art form and had never had a chance to experience this side of it. Alex called the evening 'historic'.

On Saturday the 22nd we moved down the hall to the MicroCOSM, a new gallery connected to the Chapel made to show the work of other visionary artists, to participate in an all-day ArtFusion performance (www.artfusionexperiment.com). When you walk into the room, the first thing you see are paintings from all six of the artists from the panel discussion (PaulFilipPaint.jpg, GuyMichSabPaint.jpg, SabTitinePaint.jpg). These artists (6painters.jpg) hung a pair of 3.5x5' canvases on a blank wall and began the day long process of creating a pair of collaborative paintings illustrating 'light' and 'dark' themes, with the objective to make them compositionally similar, but as opposite in character as possible (darkTheme.jpg, lightThemeSide.jpg, lightTheme.jpg, bothThemesSide.jpg, bothPaintings.jpg)

While we created these paintings, teams of 6 artists at a time did pastel ArtFusion performances on another wall, which involves short timed rotations between pieces; each set of six drawings was done in an hour, for a total of five sets (pastel1.jpg, pastel2.jpg, ZachInAction.jpg). These teams consisted of four artists from Paul Booth's shop- Liorcifer, Dan Marshall, Tim Kern and Needles (www.darkimages.com ); three tattooists affiliated with COSM- Zachariah, Jarrett DeMartino and Jon Jon. Other artists included Jon Clue (www.jonclue.com), Cory Kruger (www.krugertattoos.com), Nick Baxter (www.nickbaxter.com), Joe Hegarty (alexstattoo.com) and Matthew Amey (www.independent-tattoo.com).

During all these performances, Filip Leu's Brother Aija(Aija.jpg) and his friend Dan played an all-day music mix, melding modern electronica with melodic guitar grooves. The music changed continuously throughout the day to keep the pace of the performances going strong. Guest musicians Joe Hegarty, Matt Amey and Drew Lustman (jam1.jpg) spiced up the set without breaking pace even once through the long day.

Meanwhile, Alex and Allyson Grey had their own easels out in the room, where they worked on a pair of complimentary paintings (A&Ajam.jpg, AllysonPainting.jpg), drawing energy from the high creative power in the room and occasionally stopping to come up with creative titles for the pastel drawings, which Alex wove into an impromptu abstract poem at the end of the long day(poem.jpg), when we finally finished the pair of collaborative paintings(darkDone.jpg, lightDone.jpg).

On Sunday the 23rd we had a reception at MicroCosm featuring the six paintings by the featured artists (Michele&paint.jpg, Guy&paint.jpg), the two large collaborative paintings, and the 30 pastel drawings (crowd1.jpg). Later in the evening, a drum circle gathered in the room and any of us who weren't already thoroughly whipped took the opportunity to cut loose(cutting loose.jpg).

It was an amazing event, and a high point for us. We both did paintings specifically for the event, which we are offering as signed archival canvas prints in an effort to help raise funds for the Chapel. COSM is a non-profit organization, and they are raising money to construct a permanent building in upstate New York to replace the temporary location in Manhattan. For more information , go to (www.cosm.org). To check out the new prints, go to the Hyperspace Studios store. These are really beautiful prints; Michele's print "From Within" has hand-painted light rays to bring the image more to life and add to its artistic value. Canvas fine art prints are a great way of expanding your art collection without breaking the bank, and the proceeds for this go to a good cause.

We have all kinds of exciting things in the works here at Hyperspace Studios. For now, we have a new section at the store for archival canvas art prints, featuring both of the COSM fundraising prints, and a life-size print of a powerful collaborative painting by Don McDonald and Guy Aitchison (CollabPrint.jpg). More prints of our most popular paintings will be available soon. We are also both working on art books, which will be arriving sometime this summer. Michele's book will feature her photography, and will include a sountrack she wrote to accompany the images. It will have an introduction written by Alex and Allyson Grey. Guy's book will feature both paintings and tattoos, showing the connection between the two mediums and focusing almost entirely on Guy's characteristic abstract style. More information on these projects will come in future newsletters.