Amenra have been on the CVLT Nation radar for a while now, with their indescribable sound, but until recently we hadn’t fully explored the artistic side of the band. Amenra’s members are a part of an artist, craftsman and musician collective known as the Church of Ra, creating art as individuals and as a group, working on projects like the Church of Ra book and the Church of Ra DVD, as well as installations. Amenra‘s vocalist is C H van Eeckhout, and his individual creations have deeply inspired us here at CVLT Nation. His ‘Calvary’ sculptures consist of found crows’ carcasses, nailed ceremoniously to wooden crosses Eeckhout bought at a Belgian monastery, and crow claws bound in twisting shapes. There is something so dark and disturbing and yet glorious in these sculptures; they anthropomorphize the animal on a profound level, and to me, the demonstrate the hypocrisy of a religion that would sacrifice both animal and human for a profit. The Church of Ra installation, ‘The banquet of St. Lucas,’ was conceived and directed by van Eeckhout for the Church of Ra DVD, and it was set in the cellar of a Ghent monastery, St. Lucas. The photographs for Amenra’s artwork for live visuals were all taken by van Eeckhout, and they take the viewer into the dark and misty histories that their music evokes. After the jump, see what I’m talking about…

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Michael Aerts is a Belgian artist who makes  minimalist sculpture that ask answerless questions and walk with you in your dreams. All of his sculpture’s evoke death and embrace the feeling of timeless dread, though from the perspective of realization. It is fear revealed and therefore resigned. Fear becomes tangible and accessible and your ally. One aspect of these sculptures that I find fascinating is the conveyance of isolation and confusion. Many artist try to accomplish this and fail grandly, largely because the location in which the medium is presented must not detract from the medium itself, and showing all of these pieces in an open space allows for crushing vastness and titanic silence. Personally the piece entitled BADMAN is my favorite. In it’s crass simplicity it stands as an image of the crucifixion with batwings, evocative of something mysterious and intrinsically terrifying or evil. In addition to sculpting Michael Aerts is also a skilled painter, and i strongly advocate checking out his work but first Stroll through the hall of looming structures after the fall.

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Angela Casserly turns a second into an eternity, freezing one moment in time so that we can live in it forever. This was her goal with her series of clock sculptures, Time Standing Still, where she takes vintage wall clocks and turns them into little worlds, populated by animals, people, cars, soldiers, gravestones and trees. Her clocks communicate the moment they are living in, whether it’s a time of war or a time of birth. Part of her inspiration is from Victorian taxidermy, so her work is heavily populated by animals, frozen in their living movement. What began as Time Standing Still has now progressed into Casserly’s conceptual furniture work. She has created a couple of stunning lamps, one with a base of dinosaurs, which is basically a childhood dream come true of mine. Her crowning achievement, in my eyes anyway, is her insect table, a writhing hoard of critters, climbing over each other up the legs of a table. If crawling things freak you out, you may not like it, but then again, her work is done so beautifully maybe you won’t notice. She last showed her work at Lower Haters Gallery in SF, and I will be looking out for any new shows, maybe in the LA area? After the jump, admire a collection of her works…

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Artifacts From Hell is the evil brainchild of Michael Schulz, a collection of hand-carved and cast jewelry that looks like Satan’s own talismans. He casts his dark arts in solid bronze and aluminum, and creates a texture on the metal’s surface that gives the impression that these pieces were indeed born of hellfire. His amulets are some of the most terrifying and truly evil pieces of jewelry that I have ever seen. True, they are beautifully and delicately carved, with minute details intricately fashioned – the bony wingtips of a demon, the tiny skulls, the placenta of the hellspawn fetus are all carefully rendered. But their beauty is definitely in the eye of the black metal beholder, because these Artifacts From Hell are true to their name, and conjure more nightmares than dreams. This isn’t the kind of shit you are going to find in jewelery stores, so you can pick it up from the artist’s own shop. After the jump, check out a gallery of artifacts stolen from the Underworld…

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Karlynn Holland has made good on her promise to make Dreams Were Made For Mortals into an ongoing series of group shows, and Dreams Were Made For Mortals II is happening this Sunday, September 25th, at St. Vitus Bar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Holland is curating this one-day-only group show, inspired by and named after the track “Living Backwards,” from St. Vitus’ fifth album, V, and it will be hosted by David Castillo and Samantha Marble. For those of you who didn’t make it to the first of the series, make sure you head out to this show, because the first one looked like an epic time, and this one features some awesome artists, like Dilek Baykara, Karlynn & Sam themselves, and a bunch of other rad people. This is your chance to support some seriously creative people, who create to stay sane, and not to be some celebrity artist douchebag. There also promises to be rad music and cheap beers. Despite the 80 degree weather and incessant sunshine over here, I envy you New Yorkers who have the chance to be a part of something magical. Do my Cali ass a favor and head over to St. Vitus Bar, 1120 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222, this weekend…

Dreams, frequently, are broadcast across neural pathways in vibrant color. They are so vivid, the dreams feel more real than waking life. It haunts me. Life feels like the dream, a series of passing moments. As I rise from paralysis, they evaporate from memory. How could something so real fade so quickly? I often find myself asking this question. Explore the dawn hours of your fervent mind with work that exposes our perishable nature and echoes human frailness so often deified by gods of rock and roll.

The Abode of Chaos is a compound building in a small town near Lyon, France. It’s not like an elitist consumer based gallery, but an artwork in itself. It is like a Banksy image come to life. Thierry Ehrmann the sculptor behind this, is like an Andy Warhol with this house of chaos being the Factory. A place that just doesn’t give a fuck with 2,700 international artworks and a free admission. I think this Abode of Chaos is a symbol of resistance against our institutionalized Orwellian art world. But it is of course facing on-going law suit from the local mayor’s office. Like anything different in this world it causes fear.

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Not many artists have the reputation of receiving several court trials and three prison terms for their work. At age seventy-two, Austrian born artist, writer, and composer Hermann Nitsch reigns king of blood-drenched, ritualistic art performance, and has been awing/shocking crowds with his religious, pornographic, and grotesque work since the early 1960s. He has a knack for incorporating slaughtered animals, red fruits, music, dance, and active participants to satirize religious rites. “He is only holding up a mirror to his detractors’ own hang-ups with religion and the weird, antiquated ceremonies inherent to their beliefs.” (Vice) Do not confuse his views on religion, however. In his interview with Vice Magazine he states, “I am fascinated with religion of every era and every culture. I respect them all, without belonging to any of them. I only have religious feelings for life, nature, the cosmos, and eternity.” Provocation has never been his intention, he says. He is simply fascinated with the intensity of it all; the aesthetic process alone gives him an artistic high. Today, it is often discussed that his work may also exemplify cultures’ fascination with violence, as Nitsch is known to have grown up during World War II. Because of this, he despises politics.

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A month or so back, I did a post on Karlynn Holland, a Brooklyn-based artist who can see, and draw, your inner demon. She is one of those artists that is able to create her visions in many different media – be it illustration, sculpture or collage. She can bring you back to life from your dry, dusty bones as a trained forensic reconstructor. Holland also works with and among some influential bands and people in underground metal. And today I am happy to bring you a fascinating interview with Holland, who will take us on a journey through her life and inspirations.

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Corey Urlacher‘s found objects and bone assemblage sculptures are a delectable example of macabre beauty. He creates wall-mounted altars and shrines that exude darkness, combining blasphemous religious iconography with skulls, horns and bones in a way that invites fear from the faithful. These sculptures would not look out of place in a Victorian spiritualist’s collection of curio. Inspired by black metal and and horror, he is an expert in creating a disturbing atmosphere with his artwork. He works in rusty, bloody colors, giving each piece an almost medieval aesthetic because of their ancient relic appearance. Urlacher’s work is highly textured and complex, despite his simple palette. He combines plastic with bone and creates a masterpiece that could be made in marble or mahogany. I am looking forward to his solo show at Congregation Gallery in Los Angeles on September 17th – I can tell that the depth of these sculptures will be something mighty to behold in person. After the jump, check out some of Urlacher’s work, and go to his site to see even more…

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David Richardson calls himself a sculptor of the dark art and surrealism movement, and indeed, his sculpture is exemplary of the genre. Richardson is a metal work artisan, and runs a business doing freelance sculpture, where he has made some truly amazing pieces, such as a life-sized elephant and a buffalo that is running through the corner of a building. But his true passion seems to lie in creating menacing, melting effigies of demons, skeletons, werewolves and other monsters, who seem leap out at the viewer from their cold metal caskets. The detail and texture of his sculpture a sense of intense and rapid movement in some of his subjects, while in others it it more of a slow, deliberate stirring. His driftwood skulls are monstrously beautiful, and look like creatures from a planet rules by trees. Richardson also creates stunning jewelry, especially the collection he made specifically for a commissioned mural, where the dancing woman is actually wearing pieces of hand made sterling silver jewelry around her waist and head. After the jump, check out a gallery of David Richardson’s work.

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