Kickstarter relaunch is online!
Exclusively in this Kickstarter campaign I am giving you solutions to what most of you asked for: Multiluminous Glow in the dark art prints.
Life is exactly what it seems ;)
I decided to cancel the Kickstarter campaign for various reasons, but I’m happy to tell you, that very soon there will be another way of obtaining and enjoying my art.
After launching this campaign, I was again able to answer a small portion of the thousands of messages from all the people who supported and encouraged me so far - you - but after some 200 messages it became clear, that I would need help in order to communicate with all of you, so I’m working on that now.
I also have received many messages concerning this Kickstarter campaign and apparently for many of you it wasn’t quite clear, how to do the pledges. Probably that’s because you live in so many different countries and some of you aren’t familiar with crowdfunding campaigns like this. I also had to present a variety of products on a single page due to the Kickstarter format, which also may have added to the confusion.
I haven’t received only questions, but also interesting offers and ideas, how to produce and distribute my artworks even more efficiently, and eventually I had to take a step back and reevaluate the most appropriate way and place to present my art to you.
At this point it isn’t clear yet, whether there’s going to be another crowdfunding campaign, I’m still negotiating the new modalities. In any case, the Multiluminous prints and paint kits will be made available, because more and more of you are interested.
So I want to say “thank you” for your support and for backing my Multiluminous project, please subscribe or follow my social media, and stay tuned for more information soon!
Much love,
Bogi
" Dear XY ... "
Dear XY,
a lot of time has passed since you contacted me and since then I a had the most turbulent, chaotic but somehow also the most beautiful period of my life.
The fact that you have searched for me and my art work in such great numbers after my glowing murals went viral has pushed me into a sort of creative frenzy. I have tried to find a solution for every single one of you and so I set up my greatest challenge I ever did in my life - to produce my glowing artworks fast and effective enough for all of you around the world.
And so I begin a long and difficult journey with setting up the production system for printing my glowing wallpapers, a book and wonderful 3-in-1 paint kits for all creative souls out there.
deal with art
As you might have noticed, I have not given too much signal of life about myself in the past 2 years, because I have been working awfully hard trying to make my art available for everyone. It is time. It is going to be realized in the form of a Kickstarter campaign - if this means anything to you...
It has been a very hard time for me in even my private life and I am looking forward to recover from it. The people who have not forgotten me completely are all very far away, and busy with their own lives. Many of you saw me constantly trying to live from my art but I never really had much success doing it. So, in hindsight it is clear I could have done better, but it was probably necessary for me to learn that it cannot always go my way and something better and bigger is waiting for me. I had to learn many things, because I was not able to afford the help of professionals.
I do not know exactly how this will turn out, but I have given my best all this time. In the upcoming weeks it will be clear for everyone whether it was worth it.
These projects happen online, therefore the development and outcome of such campaigns are visible to everyone. I hope I am prepared enough for this and that I can change the attitude of people how to deal with art, artists, creativity and selfexpression in general.
Love you all <3 ✨ Bogi
SOCIAL MEDIA - SO ME
Social media is a wonderful thing. I love the opportunities it has to give.
At the same time it can be a source of much frustration..
When you have thousands of followers, you do not just post something that comes out of thin air in an inspired moment.
Sure, that happens, too, from time to time, but when you have something to say, you really need to put some thinking into it.
“Is this thought worth saying? Am I saying it right? Shall I put a picture or a video there? How long this should be? Is this the right time to post it? Will I regret posting it? Does this make me look in the right way? Am I overthinking this?”
The reason? Most people expect you to be you. But what they usually mean by “you” is the person, the digital alterego, they met online.
Social media drives us to make our lives look more exciting and happier than we usually are, because that is the pattern we see on our timeline. We see our firends at parties, on the beach, surrounded by family and friends. Always smiling, always happy.
These are just fragments of life that make up a narrative - a false one - in our minds.
Some people might think I spend all my time on ladders, painting walls. You would be surprised how much time I am NOT spending on ladders painting walls :)
Sometimes I get emotional and romantic by looking at my digital alterego on Facebook, wishing for that person really being me: the artist who paints with light all day long. But that is not me. No one really is.
Everybody needs some real people, real friends around them. Likes and comments - however dear they are to you and however nice the people behind them are - will not be able to really cheer you up, to be really comforting or supportive. At the same time they have the ability to bring you down heavily.
Instead of throwing some likes, how about calling a friend or actually meeting that person for a cup of coffee, even if just for 15 minutes? You can’t reach that many people that way of course, but one doesn’t save the world in a single evening. As a matter of fact, you don’t need to save anything at all. But maybe, just maybe, you can save someone from having a bad day.
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See the Unseen
Is seeing believeing or believing is seeing?
As an artist, I have to believe that I can make the otherwise invisible images in my head visible for everyone. That is what we do and that is why we try to come up with something unique, something original, something that has never seen by anyone, not even by us, artists.
Also, seeing is just part of believeing. When we look at something, we only see a reflection of it under specific circumstances. We do not use all our senses to experience something real and even then that reflection is limited by our very eyes. The spectra of light that goes unnoticed by human beings is often seen by other animals and a few chosen ones of us. We call this spectrum of light the ‘ultraviolet’.
The use of ultraviolet technique in imaging sheds light to wherever we would otherwise be unable to behold a single ray of it, enriching the overall experience of visual perception by adding a brand new dimension to it. We can see colors that we would not be able by any other means, different contours, shapes and patterns reveal themselves. As if we were locked in a dark room since birth with a black and white TV and suddenly someone opened the doors to have a look at the outside, the real world.
Seeing - therefore, at its best - is only believing that there is a lot more to see.
When ultraviolet went mainstream, it quickly turned into a cheap commercial stunt, a gimmick to be used in discos and clubs as an effect among many other lighting technologies. Science, however, has been using the ultraviolet technique in many areas of our lives we would not imagine, but they were not meant to be spectacular by any means.Art has just been rediscovering the technique, thanks to constantly developing technology.
My mission with using ultraviolet and other photoluminescent techniques in my art pieces is to elevate those fantastic and largely unused colors back into where they should belong: something that we can enjoy, something that opens up our perception to the world surrounding us.
By learning having a lot more things to experience that meets our mortal eyes, we might just have a better understanding of how the world really presents itself and that there are a lot more happening even on the surface than we imagined before. I am hoping that this experience will take us back to a more harmonic unison with nature and each other by revealing, presenting and sharing that extra dimension that further connects us.
Seeing should be believing there is room left for the invisible, believing is making the invisible visible.
Dreaming and Working
I took a break from work the other day and I went for a walk in the street. I met two dogs in a park. One of them was a relatively big dog, who was really shy and the other one was a small one who turned out to be a real gangster :)
It reminded me of how deceiving appearances can be sometimes. For example, when people look at a piece of my art that saddens them, they believe I was depressed, too, when I made that piece. It can be true, but not necessarily. When you work on something that takes up a lot of time, you concentrate on your work.
You don't need to be sad through the whole time making it. As an artist, you always look at the "bigger picture" and not your momentary emotions. Sometimes you have to evoke those emotions to continue to work, but when it comes to craft, concentration is the most overwhelming sensation you encounter.
This is what I do with my work at the moment.
..I had a dream that I wanted to share with everyone, but I have been working on the realization of that dream for over one and a half years now. And believe me... I haven't been daydreaming the whole time :) But you will see the end result will very much be dream-like.
Keep dreaming and working!
-Bogi
Satisfaction by Lunar Eclipse
I hardly ever feel satisfied and it seems I am not alone with said sensation. However, looking at the Moon fills my heart with satisfaction - in an attempt to balance my general discontent.
As clear as the starry night sky can I recall an experience from March 3rd, 2007, witnessing a lunar eclipse for the very first time. Prior to the sighting, I was much dissatisfied, because I knew I would have to stay up for it alone, unable to share my joy with anyone else.
Pouting and hurrying, I took my camera fitted with a zoom lens so old that would have made it my twin sister and took the shot. Unfortunately, the photo has vanished. I have since been trying to replicate the sensation I felt at that very moment through my images. It is quite rare for the shadow of the Earth to reach the Moon and change its color for a brief moment. We call this 'Blood Moon'.
No direct light gets into the Umbra region, yet it isn't completely dark as the lesser-dispersing red light penetrates the shadow-cone thrown by the Earth and creates a red halo on the surface of the Moon. Putting it simply, the Moon is lit by a misty red light during a lunar eclipse. When I first witnessed this enchanting phenomenon, all my discontent dissolved for the time being part of the experience.
As far as we can trace it back in our cultural history, the Moon has always been the second most important physical and spiritual source of light following our very own star, the Sun. The Moon has made us wondering about the limitlessness of sizes and distances in the universe and the possible outcomes of our fate with the changes of it.
I believe the Moon helps us remembering that there is an unlimited number of discoveries and beauty awaiting to be experienced. For us. To be satisfied.
Curiosity
I believe curiosity is the only thing that really keeps us pressing on in life.
I am curious about what the new dawns bring... and the following one after that. A new day, the scents of a yet uncharted garden, finding a solution to a problem, a honest due conversation, the experience of something novel - only to realize there is still a way up from there. How a long-awaited embrace will feel like, being witness to the shift of shapes and colors throughout our journey, the tune we are bound to fall in love with and remember what really is important for us - the one thing we strive to get closer and closer to each day. The longing to perceive ceaselessly. I am curious about all these, the same way a child or a scientist is - peeking through the keyhole, daydreaming by the window or expecting a scientific breakthrough.
Real life to me is driven by curiosity.
I believe the perception we create about our home and environment is responsible for the level of curiosity embedded within us.
The place we may call home fuels the intensity of our questioning - due to its endless boundaries or excruciating limitations.
If I am able to imagine the infinity, enclosing limitations are torn down in my mind and I am once again curious about what the next dawn will reveal. This is one of the most important reasons why I keep depicting the universe. My curiosity towards the mystery of endlessness is what I wish to share through my work.
When we are curious, can we imagine what a new love could feel like? How would it compare to anything?
It can be like a gigantic cloud wave awoken in a far away galaxy, whose dust glows. This enchanting wave has only been woken up by the dance of two, steaming stars light years away. They slowly crawl towards each other, their scorching wind turns the cloud into waves - without them, this cloud would not exist. Maybe these two stars will one day gravitate into one infinite, perfect unity :)
Events such as this can happen every ten thousand years in different reaches of our galaxy.
Whenever I am unable to paint by hand due to the lack of an empty wall or canvas, I reach for digital tools. What makes them great is that I am able to work even faster and more freely. Our imagination is able to come up with some highly interesting concepts and our enthusiasm enables us some of our best efforts.
TIME
...From an early childhood, my interest was partly focused on the Mayan culture - known for its art, monumental architecture, advanced mathematics and a wide range of astronomical knowledge - but it hadn't been for a couple of years until I was able to learn more, in-depth information about them. I was limited by a lack or unwise use of time. Following years of planning, I created a physical day-to-day reminder, combining several, personally important aspects about time. Most of all, I wished to reflect on its unstoppable nature.
That is how the idea came along to create a clock.
The Mayans had a vastly different concept about the passing of time. They considered it as a divine gift and they seemed to understand the connection between our solar system and the open star cluster of Pleiades - forming a gigantic spiral in the Milky Way. If we think of the 100 million year-old Alcyone 440 million light years away, the central star and the Pleiades as a cluster of only some 250 million years - it puts our minute lives into a largely different perspective.
Over the years, I kept looking into the topic, trying to find some connections, and I started to realize that there have been only very few people who boldly tried to ask serious questions about where the road was taking us. No ancient philosophers as Homer, records of civilizations or modern science has been able to support us with answers concerning where we came from and where we are going. No organized, historical religions, not even the wish-to-be-scientific-sounding new age movements have any underlying, actual scientific basis.
Will the times come to an end?
The worldwide panic at the end of 2012 was caused by a mixture of bad interpretations of legends and the over-mystified use of the Mayan calendar.
One of the cycles of Mayan calendar - according to the Gregorian one - started on August 11, 3114 BC and is characterized by different terms. These can be a lot of help to archaeologists and historians as the Mayans have recorded several significant dates on monuments, using adaptable, combinable and highly artistic signage. Therefore, one of my favorite subjects is the tzolkin, also known as the 'holy count', which is a 260 day-long period divided up to 13 months. One of the signs symbolized by a mirror, called Etz ́nab, is similar to the outline of the Pyramid of the Sun, located in Teotihuacan, North East of Mexico City.
The more information I gathered, the more confident I became about the fact that my thirst for knowledge would only increase, but nothing could stop the passing of time. When I look at this mirror-clock, it always reminds me to spend my time with important things. To me, quenching said thirst and to create are some of the most important things in life.
The creation of the clock took about 130 working hours and meticulous attention. My work is usually spent under ultraviolet light, therefore it is also handy to have the clock be seen without any other light source. Moreover, the 26,000 photon-filled stars are also night-time reminders of the shortness of human lifetime.
It is only up to us whether we let time just slip away or harness it and use it wisely.
An Invasion of armies can be resisted,
but not an idea whose time has come.
Magical Lucid Dream
Cosmic Dreamscapes
... I had a very vivid and magical lucid dream…This time no flight, but even more intense. It was very long, for about 2 hours a stranger played me a song which I have never heard before.
He sang about strange places as I saw parts of the Earth’s crust from high up in the stratosphere. These wondrous fields shone in fascinating hues of purple and white. They didn’t belong to the rest of the crust, yet it seemed so. All of them infinite and orderly, timeless and clean, they moved and grew.
Like many of you, I have always been inspired by cosmic phenomena, and by the beauty of landscapes on our planet seen from above.
And I made it my goal to bring these different patterns together visually in order to point out their actual connectedness and closeness!
I did so by creating several layers on top of each other and gave them the desired direction, but in the end I let physics and chemistry move the different materials to the perfect place. Just like in nature...
I dedicated the full size of my canvas to both motifs, and it’s always up to you, what you want to see in any given moment.
So depending on the light source, you can switch between Amazonian riverbeds and newborn galaxies.
Just change the lighting!
The paintings are rechargeable and can glow in the dark for up to 50 minutes, or by using a UV light source you can enjoy the glowing version as long as you want...
Have you ever had a lucid dream? do you maditate sometimes?
Sit still and see how long you can keep your mind empty without any thoughts popping up in your head.
just breathe...
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Learn to Grow
sculpture Of Force of Nature b Anthony Quinn -Doha
I am back again in Vienna after a few fabulous days in Qatar...
Definitely the right place to learn to grow.
and... grow as a person!
How fast can something grow out of nothing? I have never seen something like that, and believe me, no matter what you have in your hands, you can achieve miracles in your and in everybody’s life. Yes, money can help you a lot, but money plays not the most important role. We humans can only make true miracles if we are fascinated by ourselves and exited about our own ideas and if we are willing to make it. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself, and learn as much as you can...
New Challenge
Dear all... I have something very important to say
...after my work went viral on the internet, I have received an overwhelming amount of response and feedback from so many of you - emails and messages containing comments, compliments, inquiries and project proposals, sent from people of many different ages, backgrounds and from so many countries, including organizations, retired people, single parents of special needs children...
All of them - all of you - either express tangible interest in my artwork or, no less importantly, simply inspire me through kind words and give me precious energy to carry on and to continue putting my ideas and emotions into my artwork.
And, sadly, I must admit that it’s still an impossible task for me to reply to all of your messages and letters individually, even though I feel really terrible about it. But I’m honestly on the edge in many ways, especially in terms of time... So please be patient with me :)
Making a living through art isn’t always easy and of course I deeply love my work, but seeing YOU enjoying it too, that is a blessing in itself!
Believe me, I wish I could visit every single one of you and decorate all your homes with something beautiful and unique... Which of course I can’t possibly do, but I’ll always try to make my art accessible to as many of you as possible.
How to have fun on the potter's wheel ft. Ultraviolett Light
September 2013 after moving my studio from Italy to Austria I felt a sudden wish to do something crazy with the rest of my paints, remaining after a mural project. At just the right time I met Tomi Bojnec a ceramic expert who inspired me to work with clay and everything that comes with it. Since Tomi is also a good photographer I was immediately captivated by the idea - to make a magical session in his Studio at night.
I toke a circular plate, painted it black, placed it on his potter’s wheel and arranged some UV lights around. He fixed the camera while I prepared some of my paints for the action.. Enjoy :)
