Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell
Fantasy is a powerful engine for the human soul, everything the mind can imagine is real.
I want to present on this page two of my favorite fantasy artists, Boris Vallejo, originally from Lima (Peru) and Julie Bell, from Texas. These two artists have a lot in common, it becomes almost difficult to distinguish their works if it were not for the signature, some works are indeed the result of a four-handed collaboration, in many cases Julie was also a model and inspirational muse for Boris, an intense and deep communion that resulted in the marriage between the two artists. Julie was a bodybuilder in her youth, and this greatly influenced the sculptural physique and bursting musculature of her heroines, never docile or delicate, but always epic and divine. They now live in Pennsylvania, and have two sons of art: a portrait painter and a photographer. Among the many merits, they have affixed their signature to nothing less than the film posters of Star Wars (The Empire strikes again).
In their drawings, in their works, I perceive a great energy and a great vision of life and the cosmos, as a living whole, these images transmit to me energy, strength, instinct, beauty and harmony. They give back to life and the human body a divine and heroic dimension that we have neglected and forgotten in our modern daily life. Body and soul appear fused with the energies and magical wonders of the cosmos: times, realities and dimensions all seem intercommunicating here, and life seems to be free to pass through all those boundaries that seem to us to be insurmountable physical limits.
The art of these sketchers is out of time, it is projected both into the future and into a mythical and primordial past, these images speak to our collective unconscious, they speak to the deepest part of our instincts, going beyond the embarrassments of our rational mind.
The large image in the center of this page, for example, is rich and overflowing with life, it tells all the generating force and the overflowing energy of Mother Nature, I find it simply spectacular and seductive. These images are whole worlds to explore, they are like esoteric symbols in front of which to meditate and take flight, with the imagination and with the heart. I have collected my favorite images of these two great artists in an online album that you can visit at this link:
This beautiful image, rich and overflowing with life, tells of all the generative force and bursting richness of Mother Nature, I find it simply spectacular and seductive:
Fantasy art and literature are often considered minor arts by the majority of the general public, but I have always felt a great attraction towards these genres, almost as if these images were part of my DNA, as if they awakened a distant, deep and archaic feeling, like an ancestral link.
Perhaps this genre is not highly regarded because it seems to deal with topics out of reality, far-fetched things, almost a game. On the other hand, I am convinced that this is reality like many other things, and that there is something much deeper than a simple game. As those involved in inner research know well, all the spiritual masters of every confession confirm that everything that the human mind can imagine is real and possible. Those who explore the realms of the spirit, those who have practiced deep meditations and those who have lived mystical experiences or even spiritual experiences "beyond the limits of their body" report having visited places that are not places, or where the physical limits that define our realities cease to exist: there are realities without time or space, where the being is able to perceive the vastness of the universe, belonging to the whole and communion with all living beings, past, present and future.
Art can be a tool to give "visible" form to these experiences, to tell dimensions and realities that would otherwise be difficult to represent. The images that I present on this page go beyond the limits of our mind, in these images the past, the present and the future come together in a single mythical time that perhaps belongs to the collective unconscious of each of us. There is like a thin and invisible thread that links many aspects of different disciplines, and this thread shines through all these images and this artistic genre. These images touch the very deep and powerful instincts of sensuality, touch the spirituality and strength of cosmic energies and the mysteries of Mother Nature, touch the human psyche, from its deepest abysses to its highest peaks, narrate arcane mythologies mixing them with futuristic characters (modern superheroes have something in common with the ancient gods, and the gods were the metaphorical personification of the motions that govern human souls), and these images also illustrate in a fictional way a reality that sooner or later perhaps will be accepted: the ancient coexistence of human beings with so-called prehistoric animals, with dinosaurs, a reality that will force us to rewrite our entire history, and that of our planet, and then the circle will be closed: the fantasy will have become reality !
For those who want to learn more, I leave some interesting links:
Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell official