Laurence Caruana

Laurence Caruana
L. Caruana in his Bastille studio - Paris 2004.
Born (1962-02-16) February 16, 1962
Toronto, Canada
EducationProfessor Ernst Fuchs
Alma materUniversity of Toronto
Known forPainting, Writing, Lecturing
MovementVisionary art, Psychedelic art
SpouseFlorence Ménard Cuepaliztli
Websitewww.lcaruana.com

Laurence Caruana (born February 16, 1962) is a Maltese artist, writer, and lecturer known for his contribution to the contemporary Visionary Art movement, particularly through his Manifesto of Visionary Art.[1] His works have also contributed to the revival of Gnosticism in modern times.[2]

Biography

Laurence Caruana was born the third son of Maltese parents who met and married in Toronto, Canada. After completing his studies in German and Ancient Greek Philosophy (B.A. Hons. from the University of Toronto - 1985), he attended the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1987.[3]

The artist relocated to Europe in 1990, where he began an itinerant existence - living variously in Malta, Munich, Paris, Monaco, and Vienna. In that period, he actively pursued visionary experience through dreaming, entheogens and image-meditation (theoria).[4] At the age of 33, he had a transformational experience with entheogens and Visionary Art, which he later described as entering through the image.[5]

In Munich, Caruana met the French artist and dancer Florence Ménard Cuepaliztli. The couple moved to Paris in 1996, sharing a studio in the Bastille quarter for twelve years. Upon meeting Professor Ernst Fuchs (artist), co-founder of The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, the couple moved to Monaco in 2001. Caruana apprenticed under the Viennese master for a year, assisting him in his studios in Monaco and Castillon France, as well as The Apocalypse Chapel in Klagenfurt Austria.[6]

Back in Paris, Caruana’s frequent lectures, publications and exhibitions made him a significant contributor to the Visionary Art movement.[7] In 2009, the couple moved to the Bourgogne region of France while maintaining a studio in Paris. They then relocated to Vienna in 2013 to found The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art.[8] The artist currently lives between Vienna and Burgundy - frequently traveling abroad to exhibit, lecture and teach.[9]

Painting

After apprenticing with Ernst Fuchs, Caruana began using the Mischtechnik, a classical painting technique which alternates between water-based whites (mixed in egg tempera or casein) and color glazes (in an oleo-resinous medium).[10]

His art is highly mythological. Through fine lines, strong colors and precise rendering, his work manifests the imagery typical of visionary experience. More uniquely, his work combines Christian themes with the symbols and styles of different cultural mythologies. The purpose of this approach is elucidated on his website: By crossing myths and iconographies, his works explore history’s symbolic responses to 'the Eternal Questions' on the nature of time, the afterlife and our soul’s journey through the cosmos.[11] Recently, the artist's visionary approach to Christian themes has focussed on the Gnostic worldview.[12]

Caruana has exhibited his works in a variety of settings, from national museums in Paris[13] to Transformational festivals.[14] He has also had solo shows in Paris and Vienna (Le Pouvoir des Mythes - Paris 2012; Ad Sacrum - Vienna 2018) while exhibiting with various groups, such as EnQuête du Sacré in Paris / Sedan; Dreams & Divinities in Toledo, and Society for Art of the Imagination in London. He was Guest of Honour at Chimeria - Salon International des Arts Visionnaires in Sedan France in 2009.[15]

Writing

Due to his deep involvement with the Visionary Art movement, L. Caruana has also become one of its spokesmen. His First Manifesto of Visionary Art (published 2000, 2010 ISBN 978-0-97826373-7) received an enthusiastic response.[16] Through his on-line Visionary Revue, he also documented the history and evolution of this international movement.[17]

The artist’s practice of image-meditation, coupled with his research into ‘the ancient image-language’ culminated in his 2008 work Enter Through the Image: The Ancient Image-Language of Myth, Art and Dreams (ISBN 978-0-9782637-2-0). Drawing upon examples from sacred and visionary art, the author demonstrates how we may think through images and eventually enter through the image to the mystical experience of Oneness or ''henosis''. In the final chapters, various ‘iconologues’ from the ancient image-language are elucidated - how different cultural symbols may be combined and how various cultural myths may cross one another.[18]

The artist’s research into the history of painting principles culminated in his comprehensive, fully-illustrated volume: Sacred Codes: The Forgotten Principles of Painting Revived by Visionary Art (Volume One - The Drawing Stage, 2017 (ISBN 978-0-9782637-6-8). Here, Caruana gives numerous examples of the principles underlying a painting’s construction (e.g. the figure’s pose and proportion; compositional harmony and perspective) during the drawing stage, to demonstrate his thesis that contemporary Visionary Art combines 'The Hieratic Style' (the Sacred art of the East - Egyptian, Hindu and Buddhist) with 'Our Humanist Inheritance' (the Humanist tradition of the West - Classical sculpture and Renaissance painting). Throughout the book, he illustrates this thesis with the works of four principle Visionary artists: Michelangelo, William Blake, Gustave Moreau and Ernst Fuchs (artist).[19]

Teaching and Lecturing

As a lecturer, Caruana has spoken both in academic settings (The École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris;[20] The Metageum conference in Malta;[21] The SGEM Conference in the Hofburg Palace, Vienna)[22] and at popular events (The Ozora Festival, Hungary; The Boom Festival, Portugal).[23][24] A selection of his lectures at The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art were filmed, and eventually became the foundation to his book Sacred Codes.[25]

As a teacher, Caruana has been invited to teach image-meditation and the Mischtechnik at such venues as The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies and The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in upstate New York.[26] In 2008, he held the first Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar at the eco-village of Torri Superiore, Italy. Due to the popularity of these annual seminars, he began co-teaching with other noted Visionary artists (Amanda Sage, A. Andrew Gonzalez, Maura Holden).[27]

Eventually, the Summer Seminars at Torri Superiore led to the foundation of The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art - a full-time academy with the explicit aim: ...To revive classical techniques of painting while pursuing art as the expression of beauty, spirit and vision. [28] During his seven-year tenure, Caruana served as Co-Director (with Florence Ménard Cuepaliztli) and Principal Lecturer. The academy’s studios, gallery and cultural space attracted students from across the globe while exploring visionary approaches to painting and offering exhibitions of the students’ work seven times a year.[29] Due to the Global Pandemic of 2020, the Vienna Academy closed its doors, but has continued to run the original Summer Seminars at Torri Superiore Italy under the name of The Academy of Visionary Art. 

Role in the Revival of the Gnostic Worldview

Laurence Caruana has been called one of the most productive contemporary Gnostics. [30] He has contributed to the revival of Gnosticism through his three-fold activities of writing, lecturing and painting.

As an author, Caruana has explored Gnosticism both critically and creatively. In his critical study Enter Through the Image, Caruana reads the theogony of The Apocryphon of John as parallel to a mental event in which the consciousness of God (embodied in the aeons) is occluded by the passions of the soul and the appetites of the body. Gnosis is the transcendence of these passions and appetites to recognize the consciousness of God within the self.[31]

In his novel The Hidden Passion, the author retells the life of Christ from the Gnostic standpoint. Throughout the book, familiar scenes from the Gospel narratives (the nativity, baptism, crucifixion) are retold from the Gnostic perspective, while Christ himself utters the actual sayings (logia) of the Gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi. According to Matthew J. Dillon, Research Associate at The Harvard Divinity School, …his Jesus functions as a mythic paradigm for each individual’s own process of reconciling the two dimensions of humanity, the body and the divine.[32]

As Principle Lecturer at The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art, Caruana's seven-part lecture series Alchemy, Visions & Art was recorded and now appears online. One lecture in particular, The Gnostic Wordview, has garnered over 175,000 viewings on YouTube.[33]

After the closure of The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art, Caruana laid the foundation for a new major project: The Apocryphon Chapel. With the aid of collaborators, he has begun fifteen large-scale paintings which will form the interior of a chapel, in order to depict the over-arching myth of Gnostic Christianity, as told in The Apocryphon of John.[34][35]

Publications

By L. Caruana

On L. Caruana

References

  1. ^ For example, on Google Scholar his First Manifesto of Visionary Art has been cited in over 30 academic papers."Google Scholar". Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  2. ^ Described […] as ‘one of the most productive contemporary gnostics’ […] Caruana has had an extensive relationship with gnostic sources that manifests itself in publications and paintings. […] Clearly, there is evident knowledge of ancient sources directly influencing the art production. Trompf, Garry W.; Mikkelsen, Gunner B.; Johnston, Jay, eds. (2020). The Gnostic World. Abingdon, Oxfordshire UK: Routledge. p. 695. ISBN 9780367733124. Archived from the original on December 1, 2019. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  3. ^ Oroc, James (2018). The New Psychedelic Revolution: The Genesis of the Visionary Age. Rochester, Vermont; Toronto, Canada: Park Street Press. p. 371. ISBN 978-1620556627. Archived from the original on January 16, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  4. ^ L. Caruana says that his inspirations, the original images, can come through dreams or entheogenic visions. In the initial stage of drawing, this is then expanded with recognizable mythologies, symbolically and stylistically: ‘I am interested in how different cultural symbols resonate with each other.’ Mikosz, José Eliézer (2014). Visionária - Representações Visuais Inspiradas nos Estados não Ordinários de Consciência (ENOC) [Visionaria - Visual Representations Inspired by Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness (NOSC)] (in Brazilian Portuguese). Curitiba, PR, Brazil: Editora Prismas. p. 196. ISBN 978-85-8192-211-9. Retrieved November 9, 2025.(Translated from Brazilian Portuguese)
  5. ^ During his period of intense symbolic loss, Caruana had a series of mystical experiences. One of these in particular he identifies as gnosis. One afternoon, after having smoked hashish and sitting in his painting studio, he suddenly felt as though ‘For the first time, I felt a genuine religious or mystical awakening with profound and life-altering consequences. I had a direct experience of Divinity beyond any categories or points of reference given to me in my life thus far. It came as a revelation, of the sudden remembrance of who I was, where I came from, and where I would return after death. I experienced the Divine Presence as a unity [...] though that knowledge and experience had remained unknown and inaccessible to me for most of my life.’ Dillon, Matthew J. (2016). "Symbolic Loss, Memory, and Modernization in the Reception of Gnosticism". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. I (1–2). Brill: 276–309. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  6. ^ Fuchs’s influence radiated far beyond his immediate circle [of The Fantastic Realists], touching the lives and shaping the art of notable artists such Laurence Caruana, Amanda Sage, and Alex Grey, among others. His profound impact is further evident in the master-apprentice relationships he fostered with many contemporary artists before his death in 2015. Hester, Lisa (2025). "From Romanticism and Modernism to Psychedelia: Tracing the Roots of Contemporary Visionary Art". Jung Journal. 19 (3). C.G. Jung Institute: 34–54. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  7. ^ Laurence Caruana has been an outspoken advocate of visionary art since the 1990s. He is the director of The Academy of Visionary Art and the creator of the webzine The Visionary Revue, which traces the genre’s evolution. Similarly, he has written copious amounts related to the genre, including Moreau’s Labyrinth (2018), Sacred Codes (2017), The Hidden Passion (2018), and Enter Through the Image (2009). Furthermore, the author was one of the apprentices of Ernst Fuchs – arguably the most admired forerunner of VSFR [The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism]. Not to mention his connection with other highly influential artists, such as Amanda Sage and Alex Grey. Hester, Lisa (2023). Re-envisioning Visionary Art: An Inquiry into Analytical Psychology and Art Criticism. thesis (Ph. D thesis). Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest: Technological University of the Shannon. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  8. ^ Nicoleides, Steven (Spring 2016). "Inside The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art". Lúcuma. London UK: Lúcuma magazine. pp. 48–79. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  9. ^ Caruana, Laurence. "lcaruana.com". Archived from the original on January 23, 2025. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  10. ^ Mikosz, José Eliézer (2014). Visionária - Representações Visuais Inspiradas nos Estados não Ordinários de Consciência (ENOC) [Visionaria - Visual Representations Inspired by Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness (NOSC)] (in Brazilian Portuguese). Curitiba, PR, Brazil: Editora Prismas. p. 196. ISBN 978-85-8192-211-9. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  11. ^ Caruana, Laurence. "lcaruana.com". lcaruana.com. Archived from the original on January 23, 2025. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  12. ^ Dillon, Matthew J. (2016). "Symbolic Loss, Memory, and Modernization in the Reception of Gnosticism". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. I (1–2). Brill: 276–309. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  13. ^ Caruana’s work was exhibited at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac in Paris from November 14 2023 to May 26, 2024. See Dupuis, David (2023). Visions Chamaniques: Arts de l'ayahuasca en Amazonie péruvienne [Shamanic Visions: Ayahuasca Arts in the Peruvian Amazon] (in French). Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux - Grand Palais, Paris. p. 182 - 183. ISBN 9782357441514. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  14. ^ Laurence Caruana (1962 -) is a Maltese painter, writer and lecturer who apprenticed under Ernst Fuchs for a year in 2000, and who now teaches visionary art seminars; his work is popular at the galleries of the European psytrance festivals. Oroc, James (2018). The New Psychedelic Revolution: The Genesis of the Visionary Age. Rochester, Vermont; Toronto, Canada: Park Street Press. p. 371. ISBN 978-1620556627. Archived from the original on January 16, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  15. ^ A complete list of Exhibitions and Catalogues is given on L. Caruana’s website: Caruana, Laurence. "lcaruana.com". lcaruana.com. Archived from the original on January 23, 2025. Retrieved November 9, 2025. The En Quête du Sacré exhibition at Chimeria appears in Univers des arts magazine: Lamother, Nicole (October 2012). "En Quête du Sacré". Univers des arts. Paris France: Seroma S.A.R.L. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  16. ^ …the text [A First Manifesto of Visionary Art] seems to be relatively influential in its field, often cited when the topic of psychedelic and visionary art occurs (Oroc, 2018; Silka, 2016). [...] Due to Caruana’s influential position in this field, it is safe to presume that the document [The First Manifesto of Visionary Art] has affected its audience and has a seat at the table of other influential texts in this specific genre. Hester, Lisa (2023). Re-envisioning Visionary Art: An Inquiry into Analytical Psychology and Art Criticism. thesis (Ph. D thesis). Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest: Technological University of the Shannon. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  17. ^ Caruana is also responsible for the webzine The Visionary Revue, which has documented the evolution of the contemporary visionary art movement. Oroc, James (2018). The New Psychedelic Revolution: The Genesis of the Visionary Age. Rochester, Vermont; Toronto, Canada: Park Street Press. p. 371. ISBN 978-1620556627. Archived from the original on January 16, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  18. ^ Humans can come to reconnect with the divine source of all through forms of symbolic thinking, such as meditating on a cultural symbol, reflecting on one’s life as an expression of mythic prototypes, and through interpretation of dreams. This language of images Caruana dubs "iconologic." By understanding iconologic, individuals can "enter through the image" to realize identity with the One. Crucially, these symbols can be borrowed, displaced, or combined from different cultures to achieve gnosis since all of them are ultimately expressions of the One. In Caruana’s view, this ancient image language was lost when modernity became excessively logocentric. Dillon, Matthew J. (2016). "Symbolic Loss, Memory, and Modernization in the Reception of Gnosticism". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. I (1–2). Brill: 276–309. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  19. ^ Caruana, Laurence (2017). Sacred Codes: The Forgotten Principles of Painting Revived by Visionary Art Volume One - The Drawing Stage. Toronto: Recluse. ISBN 978-0-9782637-6-8. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  20. ^ For his invitations to speak at The "École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales" Paris, see for example l’ARTHEMOC, Association de Recherche Transdisciplinaire sur les Hallucinations et autres États Modifiés de Conscience (2008). "Le 1er Colloque de Printemps sur les Hallucinations dans la Philosophie et les Sciences Cognitives". artemoc.scicog.fr. Paris: ARTHEMOC. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  21. ^ Brincat, Erika (October 7, 2007). "Exploring The consciousness of the megalithic temple builders". Malta Independent. Valletta, Malta. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  22. ^ SGEM, WORLD SCIENCE (2017). "SGEM WORLD SCIENCE An International, Multidisciplinary Scholarly Society". sgemworld.at. Vienna. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  23. ^ Oroc, James (2018). The New Psychedelic Revolution: The Genesis of the Visionary Age. Rochester, Vermont; Toronto, Canada: Park Street Press. p. 371. ISBN 978-1620556627. Archived from the original on January 16, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  24. ^ A complete list of Speaking Engagements is given on L. Caruana’s website: Caruana, Laurence. "lcaruana.com". lcaruana.com. Archived from the original on January 23, 2025. Retrieved November 9, 2025..
  25. ^ The Sacred Codes Lecture Series are archived on YouTube (2017). "The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art". Youtube.com. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  26. ^ A complete list of Teaching Engagements is given on L. Caruana’s website: Caruana, Laurence. "lcaruana.com". Archived from the original on January 23, 2025. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  27. ^ Maintaining the tradition started by Ernst Fuchs, L. Caruana has been holding the Mischtechnik Seminar for years, a meeting of artists interested in studying painting techniques in the manner of the old masters, using mixed media with egg tempera or casein and glazes made with oil paint. The seminar has been held since 2008 in Torri Superiore, a small 14th-century eco-village in northeastern Italy, near the coastal town of Ventimiglia. The classes are taught over three weeks by visionary artists known worldwide for their work such as Amanda Sage, Maura Holden, Andrew Gonzalez, and L. Caruana himself. Mikosz, José Eliézer (2014). Visionária - Representações Visuais Inspiradas nos Estados não Ordinários de Consciência (ENOC) [Visionaria - Visual Representations Inspired by Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness (NOSC)] (in Brazilian Portuguese). Editora Prismas. p. 196. ISBN 978-85-8192-211-9. Retrieved November 9, 2025.(Translated from Brazilian Portuguese)
  28. ^ "The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art". vienna-academyofvisionaryart.com/. Archived from the original on August 5, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  29. ^ Nicoleides, Steven (Spring 2016). ""Inside The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art"". Lúcuma. London UK: Lúcuma magazine. pp. 48–79. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  30. ^ Visionary artist and author Laurence Caruana is one of the most productive contemporary gnostics. He has written extensively on the Nag Hammadi Codices, producing two major works: Enter through the Image, a philosophical study of ancient epistemology as he sees it; and The Hidden Passion: A Novel of the Gnostic Christ Based on the Nag Hammadi Texts. Dillon, Matthew J. (2016). "Symbolic Loss, Memory, and Modernization in the Reception of Gnosticism". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. I (1–2). Brill: 276–309. Retrieved November 9, 2025. Caruana's work is also mentioned in the Preface of James M. Robinson’s two-volume history of the Gnostic Discoveries: Robinson, James M. (2014). The Nag Hammadi Story: From the Discovery to the Publication (2 vols.). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. p. Preface xxvii. ISBN 978-90-04-26423-6. Archived from the original on December 1, 2014. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  31. ^ Dillon, Matthew J. (2016). "Symbolic Loss, Memory, and Modernization in the Reception of Gnosticism". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. I (1–2). Brill: 276–309. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  32. ^ Dillon, Matthew J. (2016). "Symbolic Loss, Memory, and Modernization in the Reception of Gnosticism". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. I (1–2). Brill: 276–309. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  33. ^ Caruana, Laurence (2019). "The Gnostic Worldview". youtube.com. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  34. ^ Recently, he has begun work on a series of paintings that depict paradigmatic scenes from gnostic mythologoumena (e.g. the Anointing of the Christos, the Five Seals, and the Bridal Chamber) planned for a gnostic chapel in the southwest of France. Dillon, Matthew J. (2016). "Symbolic Loss, Memory, and Modernization in the Reception of Gnosticism". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. I (1–2). Brill: 276–309. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  35. ^ Caruana, Laurence. "Chapel Project". lcaruana.com. Archived from the original on November 28, 2022. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
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