Visions

An exhibition featuring the Society for Art of Imagination

I would love to cordially invite you all to Visions opening at The Berkeley Alembic this Saturday, November 23rd. I know a bunch of you are not local, so how is that going to work, you may be thinking. I’ll do an Instagram LIVE walk-through before the opening so please set your reminders for this Saturday at 5:30 pm Pacific Time. My Instagram is @krisztina_lazar_art if you don’t already follow me.

This show holds a special place in my heart. My teacher and mentor, Brigid Marlin founded the Society for Art of Imagination in 1961. Brigid and a small cohort of fellow visionary artists and was called Inscape. This first group was very limited and Brigid would tell me stories of them getting together and painting in castles in Europe while they all galavanted around. It sounded amazing. Sign me up! They were encouraged by modern master, Ernst Fuchs to expand because there were artists around the world who needed to connect, and together, they could forward the visionary, sacred, imaginary, and fantastical realism art genres. For the last sixty-three years, the Society has exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States, sharing members' exceptional visions and work with audiences worldwide.

I joined the Society when I went to study with Brigid and learn the mische technique in 2005. Here I am below at Brigid’s home as she is helping me with a tough spot on my painting.

I have exhibited in Saeby, Denmark, throughout the United States in galleries and even a museum in Pennsylvania, and probably my absolute favorite, at the H.R. Giger Museum in Gruyere, Switzerland. The two images below were from the Saeby exhibition. This was very close to the longest day of the year in June. The sun rose at about 4am, bathing the town in about 19 hours of daylight. You can see it’s dark in the photo behind Brigid. We are enjoying a delicious meal at one of Saeby’s amazing restaurants. Below that, we are at the opening chatting with Michel Saint de Ouen, an incredible artist who I spent quite a lot of time with driving paintings from London to Gruyere for that exhibition.

I really need to dig up my photos from my archives from the Gruyere trip (read: I need to find my hard drives and figure out which one it’s all on). H.R. Giger was still alive and I got to hang out with him and a bunch of other incredible artists in the odd little town of Gruyere while having fondue.  

I have some incredible memories of sitting in cafes and chatting with Brigid and her friends as they told stories. It’s one of the only times that I wish we had already had Social Media in the world in order to easily keep in touch with all of the people I met on my travels. I was terrible at keeping records back then and so many of them have slipped back out of my life.

Even then, I had dreamed of somehow being able to host or facilitate an AOI exhibition where I lived. Almost 20 years later, I have. It’s honestly such a dream come true.

I hope to see some of you in person as well as online on Saturday!