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ILLUMINATIONS The Geography Of The Imagination,
Steven E. Counsell, Author/Artist

 

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INTRODUCTION by Monika Wikman , Ph.D. Tesuque, N.M. Jungian Analyst & Author, she states:

“WITH STEVEN COUNSELL’S work doors open into the living imagination and invite us to walk through with him into its autonomous creative expressive landscape. And as we do the living question arises — what land have we entered?

From one point of view, we enter through his work via his paintings, drawings and accompanying poems, the landscape of the creation matrix itself erupting in ever fresh images revealing its own life from the depths as it informs contemporary daily reality.”

 

face scuplture lays on surrealistic ground

THE ORDINARY DEVINE, Detail of painting

Illuminations takes us back to a place we have never truly left. Here we can find our deepest desires, our most potent dreams the comfort that comes from being fully alive. Returning to our origins does not require giving up anything; we can keep our masks, toys and machines, but there is more to us than any of these. They may run part of our show but they are not the whole theatre. Illuminations kindly requests we find the synergy of word, image, and awakened self. Any true work of art haunts us with remembered grace; in this book we will discover worlds we have forgotten. Illuminations can take us and bring us back, we can be home here, alive, we can giggle and laugh, feel fear, be alone by choice, but not be simply abandoned.

This book offers magic that works, forms and pleasures that stave off the phony snake-oil that pretends to be more than it is. Prophets of nothingness have been telling us for years that the debris and debilitation we see in many galleries can take us to a higher plane, can free us from solid earthbound magic and offer us fashionable and intellectually important tricks instead. But you know, we don't have to believe them! We generally know when we are being humbugged, and when we are humbugging ourselves.

 

portrait of Steven E. Counsell
Steven E. Counsell, Artist
National INDIE Book Award
National INDIE Award Best FINE ART BOOK
Award Best Art Book and Best Cover
NM-AZ AWARDS Best Art Book & Cover