Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

Hands down Mati Klarwein pushed my early painting efforts furthest. Take Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dali, James Rosenquist, throw them in a vat of peyote buttons and psilocybin, and you get Abdul Mati.

As a painter, looking at Klarwein’s work is intimidating, and I was never able to match the intense religious attention and power he devoted to his compositions. These are epic mindscapes that one must live with and merge into.

His incredible photo-realistic detail presaged the ease of use Photoshopping of collage imagery and computer graphic imagery. Klarwein is probably best known for the publishing of his paintings on album covers by Miles Davis, Santana and Jerry Garcia… but there is so much more than that!