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Isaac Abrams Recent Paintings
September 8, 2007 - October 6th
Until his first LSD session in 1965, Isaac Abrams did not consider himself an artist. After that mind-expanding event, he began to paint and his paintings displayed an intensely individual and vivid style. Now considered one of the most relevant psychedelic artists of our time, Abrams' paintings explore vividly colored dreamlike imaginal worlds. Following his early works exposure in the "Summer of Love" exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art, the MicroCoSM Gallery exhibit shows the artist has continued and evolved his powerful vision. His recent gigantic oil paintings, "Trip Ticket" and "Trip Ticket #2", are two of the artist's most epic works that teem with flowing oceanic, abstract, and supernatural archetypes.
Read the Carlo McCormick review in ArtNet !
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| Isaac Abrams, Trip Ticket, 2006, oil on canvas, 47" x 132" in 3 sections |
In 1965, Abrams took part in an experiment using modern hallucinogens at the Dream Laboratory in Brooklyn, New York. Psychologist Stanley Krippner observed the effect of these hallucinogens on the creative process and reported how artists experienced a limitless untamable world rich in color and mental imagery that they translated into real physical space. Jean Houston and Robert Masters used Abrams work on the cover of their historic book, Psychedelic Art, published in 1968. Houston and Masters wrote of Isaac:
"During the LSD session, he discovered that there was also a rich inward life – spiritual, pre- or extra logical, irrational or going beyond reason. At the same time, he first became aware of the world as possessing a balance, a harmony, above all a unity not evident to him before. Afterward, even on the city streets, his awareness was mainly of the sacred and the beautiful. These were the things he felt compelled to express and he turned to painting and drawing as the best means for this expression."
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In 1967, Abrams was owner/director of the Coda Gallery, known for introducing Psychedelic Art into
mainstream America. He subsequently studied with the renowned Austrian visionary artist, Ernst Fuchs, in
1972. Abrams exhibited his own artwork in Zurich,Munich, and at the Tate in London. In New York, Abrams
has exhibited at the Whitney Museum of Art, and at the Dworkin Gallery among others.
Abrams' paintings radiate a vital life force seen from any point of view and from any distance. Immersed in the psychedelic experience, Abrams work continues to thrive, making the delicately imagined worlds of fantastical creatures, wild plants, and surreal existences come to life.
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