Celestial City of Light

Original 30" x 42" Casein and watercolor on board. SOLD. Giclee reproduction available (inquire).

Language of the Birds

Original SOLD. Available as photographic reproduction (inquire)

In the beginning of the path to God and Truth there are thousands of birds. The different birds symbolize different kinds of people in the world. The path to God assends the mountain of Qaf (insight).

As the birds travel up the mountains, most for one reason or another turn back to their old lives. The birds that continue their search are seeking a mystical bird whom they know only as the Simurgh. The Simurgh is an appearance of God.

At the end of the Journey, just 30 birds reach the top of the mountain of Qaf and the presence of the Simurgh. In the Persian lanugage, Si0murgh means "30 birds." The birds realize that they and the Simurgh are One.

Prayer to St. Francis

Original 24" x 36" Casein and watercolor on board. $1600

Entrance to the Temple

Original 30" x 30" Casein and watercolor on board. $1400

Tree of Life With Cycle of Suns

Original 30" x 30" Casein and water color on board. SOLD. Giclee reproductions available (inquire).

Miraj of the Prophet

Original size 30" x 30" Framed $1800. Also available in giclee print (inquire).

The Meaning of Mystical Art

The goal of the practice of mysticism is contact with the Divine through various meditative and spiritual disciplines. In mystical painting, the artist cultivates a meditative state clear from thought, imagination and fantasy. When this clear state has been achieved, images and archetypes are projected from the spiritual Reality. The state of the painter of mystical paintings is very much the same as a state of meditation, a clear open state in which the mind is at rest and into which archetypal images and forms are projected from the suprasensable realm. The mind needs to be at rest so that the mind will not subject the pure images to conscious (common) associations of "logical" color and form relationships.

Only a small fraction of painting can truly be described as mystical. Most of this art would be better labeled as fantasy since it happens within the conscious mind of the artist, the mind being encouraged to free-associate interesting or unique combinations of forms or situations and producing pictures which startle or intrigue the mind of the viewer. They are not "windows" to other realities but rather something which appeals to the curiosity and wonder of people.

True mystics realize that the source of all multiplicity of form, experience, thought and feeling in which we partake is found in oneness, in pure essence. This oneness/essence we call Allah, Lord, God and Beloved. If we choose to align ourselves with this oneness we will receive pure guidance. Depending on the capacity of the receiver, the guidance may be received in visual, musical, poetic or other form. If we choose to pay no attention to the oneness, we lack guidance, our life proceeds in a confused haphazard way.

Since the Oneness is the Source of all things, including our being and life, we cannot make demands upon it. We are completely dependent on it in all ways. If we wish to attract some guidance to us, we must create a receptivity for the Guidance to flow into.

Mystics down through the centuries in various traditions have followed different methods designed to entrap the senses and quiet or clear one's being of thought, emotion, fantasy, etc.

In the case of mystical painting, images come when they will, with no regard to the situation of the artist. They come as mercy, as a gift. The images come complete or incomplete. If they are incomplete it is simply a matter of waiting for the missing parts to be "sent".

The structure of the paintings of Husayn Neuzil is archetypal. The forms are crosses, stars, rectangles, triangles, trees, doors, mountains or suns and moons.

In the classical tradition of painting, artists used to create a ground of umber or ochre which if reduced to a grey scale would read as a middle grey. From this middle grey they would work the color toward light and dark. Husayn Neuzil works in a similar way in his choice of greyed colors for backgrounds such as greyed blues, browns, greens and violets. Neuzil's style, although quite contemporary, has many similarities with Middle Eastern art-his use of borders and escutcheons with elaborate decoration-the purposely distorted perspective so that the viewer will not confuse the spiritual reality of the painting with the everyday world around us.

Husayn Neuzil's vibrant use of color is based on his understanding of color in its mystical sense. There is a series of colors which relate to the succession of colors as they appear to the mystic in the hierarchy of spiritual states. Neuzil uses color relationships in this way rather than as they appear in standard color wheels.