ImagoDeiVine

The art of Imago Dei explores internal connections. If you view his canvasses, you'll experience a sense of shifting from simply seeing to an internal interaction between you and the art. The experience begins within the eye but quickly travels along inward roads. The images transmute as they make the journey through your conscious and subconscious, eventually resonating in a place of spiritual connection. Upon seeing this art you become " activated " in a personal way.

Native American sand paintings sparked what Imago Dei's art has become. The composing of a sand painting is that of an active prayer, done by a shaman as an act of healing. It uses the creative process of life itself. The process of the painting is as important as the finished product. Being aware of this process is being in the now, where the eternal creative life force exists. Using this process with awareness and intent, the artist can create an energy used to heal and transform.

The Abstract Expressionist works of Imago Dei stem from this philosophy of the artistic process. This artist process is the now, the eternal moment beyond time, the place of true expression. For the painting, it becomes more than a painting, it becomes "an event of life". The abstract expressionist works of artist like Joan Mitchel, Jackson Pollack, and Paul Jenkins greatly influenced Imago's work, as well as abstract artists like Mark Rothko and Wassily Kadinsky.

Imago Dei is blessed with the ability to travel and experience many world cultures. This influence can be seen in his Philosophies as well as his approach to art. His travels exposed him to ancient forms of cultural symbolism, Native American, African, Oriental, Hindu and Tibetan. He began to comprehend that these symbols were actually keys to the higher self, and it was the making and viewing of these symbols that resonated within psychic archetypes to raise the consciousness. Imago began to incorporate these ancient symbols and sacred geometry into his work in hopes of activating the subconscious, giving us a glimpse of our divine immortality. HIs recent work explores the Taoist philosophies of spirituality and art, particularly the artistic of the Northern and Southern Sung Dynasty of the 15th- 17th centuries.

The emphasis of this art is the tranquility of life with a hint of our immortal nature. To create a literal depiction of a scene in Nature is to miss the point of oriental painting entirely. Oriental art uses the collective experience of Nature to enable the artist to express its essence. Imago encodes his philosophical teachings in color and symbol to engage us with the external experience of our own divine spirituality through the higher self. Spiritual, healing, visionary and uplifting, Imago's works represent painting as prayer, connecting us all to an image of the divine.

Imago Dei received a Bachelor of Science in 1987, a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts in 1990, and completed the Advanced Studies Program In 1990 from The Art Institute of Chicago as one of the institute's top ten painters.
He has studied the philosophies of Carl Young and Joseph Campbell, yet his greatest inspiration is Native American and Taoist traditional beliefs and practices.