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"It all starts like magic... a sudden gush of inspiration, a hymn, a whisper, an idea comes to mind, conscious of unconscious... phantoms or spirits or whatever other names they are called... premonitions and visions... automatisms and paranoiac visages... sometimes they come to me when I'm reading, other times they go as empty vessels...then I begin to create…"
- Gromyko Semper
Gromyko Semper (b. 1985) is a self-taught artist whose works have travelled far beyond his own country, having exhibited in Germany, the United States, Portugal, France, Russia, Austria, Australia, Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Semper's drawings are executed in the manner of Japanese wood-block prints, whilst embodying a personal, invented mythology like William Blake and J.R.R. Tolkien; the symbolists, surrealists and decadents; and up to and including British artist Patrick Woodroffe’s Mythopoeikon (1976) and The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony (1979) and the forerunner of Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, the visionary, Ernst Fuchs. Whilst Semper's work has some affinity with Albretch Durer's woodblock style, it stands apart, drawing on Filipino supernatural folk traditions, Christianity, Jungian psychology, the mysteries of the Kabala and Gnostics whilst employing elements of quantum mechanics, alchemy, world mythology, the occult, classical art symbolism, art nouveau and erotic drawings.
In 2009, Semper together with Mexican Hector Pineda co-edited the book, Imagine the Imagination - new visions of Surrealism, in which he was also featured. In 2015, he co-curated The Encyclopaedia of Fernal Affairs with Liba W. Stombollion.
Sands of Pactolus is Semper's first solo show in Singapore.
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