Light Bringer Art. The beginning. the shrine of the angel .

The first paintings of the Light Bringer Art collection were presented in 2017 at a collective exhibition called The Art of Divine Inspiration. They were the first of a new cycle which came out during a process of inner transformation that brought me into another stage of my life and inner journey and so then of my art. They were traditional oil paintings, mostly focused on Angels, spiritual and gnostic themes. It was at that exhibition that I met Maja Tokar, who since then became my collaborator and co-creator in this project We called Light Bringer Art. Maja is a jeweller and the idea of a collaboration came to us spontaneously. As the creative spark immediately came, a magical alchemy was formed between us and so We started to create our first artwork, the first of a series of mixed medias that came to form the main Light Bringer's body of works. This Artwork in the photo gallery was the first work we made together and the beginning of the Light Bringer Art project. It is a mixed media consisting in an oil painting made by me and metal pieces made by Maja. It includes brass, copper, gilding metal, a raw ruby and real preserved crow wings incorporated in the work, all built as an original structure in the form of a shrine, mounted on a larger background panel. Maja made also the metal structure that holds the wings. Someone had these two crow wings and He felt it was a shame to throw them away and he hoped He could give them to somebody that could make something beautiful with them. Well, that was us, we thought, so we got them. We had to invent a way to incorporate it into the work and so Maja designed and made the structure to join them to the body. We made a SHRINE! Not only a piece of art but a unique magic and occult object. People ask: Who is She in the image? I prefer they find the answer themselves, however I could say... First of all, for us She is an Angel, and yet, as soon we finished Her, We realised that she has the features of the ancient goddess Ishtar, also called Inanna. The eight pointed star is her crown, she has wings. Here she holds a burning globe, a central piece made of copper resembling the Sun. She has a snake below the navel coming upward that reminds the Kundalini, the snake-like energy that in the yoga tradition is the awakening energy that lays at the base of the spine and that once is arisen moves upwards opening the chakras one by one. When the Kundalini reaches the crown, and it opens, then Enlightenment happens. So who is she? She is a manifestation of The Morning Star, the Light Bringer. A name that was given also to the planet Venus from very ancient time. Her wings are dark like the night and she emerges from the darkness. Crows are also considered messengers of the gods and carriers of the soul. Like Ishtar/Inanna, who according to the myth descended and returned from the underworld, She is a guiding star in the Night. She holds a secret that is only for the initiated to know, therefor the gesture of silence. And only the initiated will know who she truly is. With this work we expressed the concept of Light in the darkness. A theme that runs through all our works. Light Bringer Art is an alchemical work and like every alchemical work it starts from the first stage, Nigredo, a stage in which matter has to become dark, dark like a crow in this case.

But in our work the Light remains always central, it's the focal point, it is the Philosophical Stone that transmutes the base element into the noble. Alchemy uses metals so we also use metals in our work. The alchemical work is the transmutation from base metal, like here it's copper, into gold, but it is also the transmutation from humble to noble, from mortal to immortal, from human to divine. In this work the alchemical symbols of the five elements are placed in the corners and on the top. Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Spirit. Merging metals gems and painting is an alchemy that opened for us exiting new artistic possibilities that we started to explore with this work and then we continued to develop in all the following collaboration mixed medias artworks. It is important for us to create objects adding metals, stones, crystals, gems or other material elements to the image also because like this we can make magic.

Every piece is an entity that needs not only an image but also a body, so these are 3D objects and with a 4th dimension within. As the ancients knew and the Renaissance

magus rediscovered, an artifact, a statue, a work of art, can be a dwelling for a daemon (or daimon), meaning an Entity with powers, that can be a deity, or an angel, or a spirit guide.

The Light Bringer Art is like the art of the Magus. It is about creating something in the physical and in the metaphysical. Everything, however, must be done with wisdom.

These are just some keys of interpretation but I usually like to leave the interpretation to the watcher; in fact I think that rather than an interpretation, what is needed is a communication between the piece, or should I say the entity in the piece or beyond the piece, and the viewer.

Our figures speak the language of the symbols, and symbols are powerful things, living entities that speak to those who can understand or are ready to understand. Or perhaps, our angels mean to call those seekers that are willing to enter and investigate the Mystery. Ivan Boccherini