The Garden of Fernal Delights is a sublime and paradisiacal place where all the delights of the natural world from the sexual to the surreal, the visionary to the instinctive, are celebrated as fundamental joys of being alive. The Garden is a multi-dimensional place where all is conscious and divinely intelligent from the animal to mineral to vegetable to the etheric. All can communicate, co-create, cooperate. This Garden of Delights knows no violence, no notion of original sin, no hierarchy, no fixed temporal system. Rather it is a place of magic, of play and playfulness. It resides in the Garden of the heart and has no limit to its creativity.
The Fernal concept was conceived by artist Gromyko Semper as an antithesis to Infernal. His developing universe evoked the image of a contemporary ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ (by the 16th century Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch). As Gromyko revealed his concept, we both came to realize how many of our contemporaries were already Fernal. Whether lowbrow, visionary, surrealist, outsider, fantastic, or magic realists, the Fernal universe was already being expressed through fantastic landscapes and botany, surreal species and architecture, magically divine symbolism. It was so rich that I proposed to catalogue this co-created Fernal universe in an Encyclopædia. Thus the birth of this book, its exhibits and events.
Bruce Rimell rapidly found his way into the core of our Fernal fantasy. We became three to brainstorm, invent stories together and develop a foundation for the Garden. He helped me write parts and he developed a language for the Garden. It is a functioning language called Fernalese which is described in the last chapter of the Encyclopedia: W for Words. The Encyclopedia is bilingual Fernalese-English.
The book catalogues a co-created “Boschian” style universe with its own fantastical creatures, botany, architecture, rituals, its own created language and much more.
The writing and art includes artists Ernst Fuchs, Agostino Arrivabene, Martin Wittfooth, Beksinski, Alex Grey, Mu Pan, Madeline Von Foerster, Amanda Sage, Martina Hoffmann, Robert Venosa & an eclectic community of Internationally acclaimed artists from genres including: low brow, visionary, pop surrealism, fantastic & magic realism.
I designed and conceptualised the Encyclopædia. It is divided into alphabetical chapters eg: A for Architecture, B for Botany, C for Culture, D for Dreams, E for Erotica etc. Twenty-one different artists did the illuminated letters, Gromyko Semper created the borders throughout the book and Michael Hutter did the illustrations for the cover. The color image is by Hannah Faith Yata. Delvin Solkinson did a large part of the proofing and polishing.
Here are a few pages:
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![fernal sample page 62.jpg]
To see more pictures and a list of artists, Otto Rapp’s (@thermoplastic ) Visionary Art Gallery has a good page on the Fernal Garden with the entire artist list and more images.
https://www.visionaryartexhibition.com/garden-of-fernal-delights.html
“The paradox of Fernal Delights is the equinox of the moment we understand and comprehend the failing and beautiful life forms around us. This grand compendium allows us to linger while our small minds catch up with the gush of liquid ideas caught for a moment on canvas. A powerful presentation.»
Ronald Edward Turner –Publisher/Editor in Chief at Last Gasp Publications
On May 29th, an International crowd of Fernalians gathered to launch the Garden of Fernal Delights.
Mission Control - Holofonic Sounds hosted the Costume Ball which included an outrageously Fernal performance by Featherpistol and Friends, spirit moving flute from Linda Michelle Hardy, booty moving belly dancers from the troupe: The Foxglove Sweethearts, live painting, titillating video projections from Ben Stokes, video loop from Ben Ridgway and groovin music from DJ Mophono.
The performer Three did a wonderful interpretation of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds which is partially captured by Sandy Yagi's phone. The video is good fun, don't be fooled by the still
To see the album of pictures:
https://www.visionaryartexhibition.com/dreams--divinities-blog/launching-the-garden-of-fernal-delights-album-13-the-costume-ball
The next day the show was launched!
Here is the album of the show: the paintings and the opening: http://www.dreamsanddivinities.com/2015/06/launching-the-encyclopaedia-of-fernal-affairs-its-travelling-show/
We also had conferences from Carrie Ann Baade, Bruce Rimell and Mark Henson.
Don’t miss the Fernalese Creation myth told by Bruce Rimmel in fernalese! (with English subtitles)
We have since done events and book signings in France. One of my faves was at the Naia museum in Brittany. Seen here is the group of Fernal artists who came out for the events.
You can read about that one , on my blog on the VA:
https://www.visionaryartexhibition.com/dreams--divinities-blog/fernal-book-signing-and-events-at-the-naia-museum
I also have a blog on my site. I confess it hasn't been updated lately but it has lots of fernal information...
http://www.dreamsanddivinities.com/
For more pictures on the book as well as a listing of where to get it:
http://www.dreamsanddivinities.com/the-book/
thanks for reading!
What a beautiful book! Terrific! Great congratulations for everyone who took part in creating such a beautiful project. Well done!
-upvoted-
Thanks @scrawly!
This is amazing, such a deep imaginarium full of symbolism. Powerful!
thanks :D
This looks extraordinary and I will definately check it out. Looks sumptuously sensuously wondrous, in fact!
haha merci :)
Wow, what an amazing project and looks like a stellar book. I love this idea of the layers of art. I might need to get a copy of this book!
thanks! :)
I am glad to have a part in this book and the exhibition in SF, unfortunately I missed the fun being there in person.
I had aquired several copies, and one of them I gave to Ernst Fuchs. In his last days (and I visited him often during that time) he had this book by his bedside and went through it over and over. I talked to him about the artists, and particularly the ones I got to know personally (from our days in Mexico as well as Paris and other shows I did attend). Ernst was happy about being included in the book and full of praise for the artists, and you, dear Liba, for putting this together!
Thank you also for mentioning my involvement in this .
upvoted - resteemed - shared:
Thank you my dear @thermoplastic loved having you, Ernst and all the amazing fernal artists . Thanks for your naturally fernal instincts and universe ;)
That is a beautiful book. I noticed a few copies for sale on Amazon.
thanks! Yes it is on amazon but cheaper to get directly from me :) http://www.artwork-liba.com/shop
Yes. That is a lot cheaper! I looked through your site but must have missed that link.
lol. sorry about that..I realized last night when i was posting that i might have out one link to many! appreciate you pointing it out :)
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STOPMy first reaction is Neo Art Nouveau! Does such a thing exist, I guess it does now.
i'll go along with that ;)
This is an amazing project! Thank you so much for sharing about it here, I had never heard of this but I am absolutely loving everything I am reading in the linked websites. So glad you are here on Steem now, you are making this a more fernal place daily <3 And yes, wow, the performance by Three is amazing!
Thanks :) Yes! wish i had had time to film all the performances. So much talent in this world!!
cheers
Liba
Truly appreciated.....Many thanks to @markangeltrueman
this is cool. I tried to upvote but it says this: RPCError: Assert Exception:_db.head_block_time() < comment.cashout_time - STEEM_UPVOTE_LOCKOUT_HF17: Cannot increase payout within last twelve hours before payout.DISMISS
any idea what that means? I have only posted and liked 1 thing.
wow @vincentfink that is so weird. I totally do not know what that means. I don't even know who to ask but i will definitely look into it. Thanks for the appreciation and the heads up. cheers
I will make this food. I like it. good food good health......