Exploring Visionary Art: Bridging Ancient Traditions and Sacred Stories

Visionary art is more than just a visual experience; it is a profound journey into the heart of ancient wisdom, cultural preservation, and spiritual connection. Rooted in the sacred traditions of indigenous peoples, visionary art serves as a bridge between the past and present, translating timeless knowledge into vivid, symbolic imagery. Each brushstroke tells a story, and each canvas becomes a vessel for the voices of ancestors, offering glimpses of the universal truths that unite us all.

This blog explores six powerful pieces of visionary art, each one a testament to the rich cultural heritage and spiritual depth of its subject. From the sacred rituals of the Wixárika people to the intricate weavings of Tzotzil and Arhuaca women, these works weave a tapestry of human connection with nature, spirit, and community. They celebrate the resilience of traditions passed down through generations and offer a window into worlds that continue to thrive despite the challenges of modernity.

Visionary art also invites us to reconsider our relationship with the earth and its many forms of life. Through symbols, colors, and patterns, these pieces echo the wisdom of plants, animals, and sacred ceremonies. They reflect the interconnectedness of all things, reminding us of the deep-rooted balance found in indigenous cosmologies. These works are not merely art; they are living expressions of prayers, dreams, and visions brought to life by skilled hands and awakened hearts.

Join us as we delve into these six remarkable works: "Vision of the Cosmos," "Muk' Ta Luch," "Weaving: Woman's Thoughts," "Batsi Chij," "Reh-GAY-leea," and "Iyari." Together, they illuminate the profound beauty of visionary art and its ability to preserve the sacred knowledge of ancient cultures while inspiring new perspectives for the modern world.

Title: Iyari

Size: 166 x 255cms

Technique: Oil on canvas 

Description: The men and women of Mother Hikuri listen to the voice of the earth through the sacred hikuri or peyote plant. This voice is recorded in their clothing and their traditional clothes tell the story of their re-existence, through which they sustain their own culture in the face of permanent colonization. The nest where the manifestations of this sacred plant are cared for are their rituals expressed in medicine, weaving, songs, pilgrimages and traditional dances, from which the mara'akames gather the expression of a people and their culture. 

The women weavers and embroiderers of the community also join the word of this voice that reveals to them the visions captured in images, designs and colors of the hikuri, and the garments are recreated on cotton canvases. The path of the traditional shaman healers is parallel to that of the weavers; Together they enter the path of the heart traced by the sacred plant, radiating all the cultural, ceremonial and spiritual expressions of the Wixárika (Huichol) people. 

The Wixáritari (plural) recognize the same experiential path for those who study textile arts and for those who wish to become shamans. Both types of beginners find allies in the sacred plants, hikuri (peyote, Lophophora williamsii) and kieri (golden cup, Solandra sp.), who guide their spiritual growth. Women who aspire to become master weavers and embroiderers also seek animal allies, as do shamanic apprentices.

Three reptiles are the most important allies of the young artists: the horned lizard, the Gila monster and a boa. The initiated weaver counts the stripes on the snake's skin, just as she counts the threads to reproduce her designs on the fabric. For five years the young woman searches for and makes offerings to her animal ally to create beautiful textiles, but the pact lasts a lifetime. Artists and shamans thus develop their knowledge, skills and spiritual power.

Title: Reh-GAY-leea

Size: 155 x 210cms

Technique: Oil on canvas 

Description: The name regalia (reh-GAY-leea) refers to the traditional costume worn by indigenous communities in the United States and Canada for different rituals. However, the regalia embodies much more than a costume; in fact, it could be said that reh-GAY-leea is a spirit. The peak moment to use this costume is at Pow Wow ceremonies.

Through the reh-GAY-leea, personal, family and community history is narrated, as well as the social and cultural drift recorded in the history of this people. This girl's costume is a fabric where past, present and future tell us the centimeter by centimeter of her memory. Her reh-GAY-leea is a world; each outfit has the uniqueness of the dancers and is the product of her visions in dreams and ceremonies with plants. 

The paraphernalia of this ceremonial costume reminds us of its use as an investiture that gives purpose and meaning to the collective construction of knowledge of ancestral cultures. Its purpose goes beyond covering the body: the costume represents and expresses a way of existing in cultures. A dancer's Pow Wow attire is a collection of items that reflect their lives, interests and stories.

Many wear garments that are family heirlooms or gifts made by members of their clans. Some costumes are made and redesigned throughout life: they are transformed according to the experiences of the person who wears them.The transmission of these traditions is preserved in the participation of children in the Pow Wow gathering. Thus, this girl is the story and the history in motion of the memory of which she is the heir. Wearing the costumes in the traditional ritual involves a long time of preparation. Their dances, music and songs finally reach the moment of expansion in the community space where the traditions that have been cultivated are shared. In this way the ritual extends over a good part of the year.

Title: Batsi Chij

Size: 195 x 200cms

Technique: Oil on canvas 

Description: Clothes are a coordinate of time and space; we can almost see and feel the hands and the trades that make the existence of these garments possible. Two dancers from the Ballet de Chiapas: Chiapan represent the territory of the Chiapas mountains in the fabrics that compose them. 

In the Highlands of Chiapas, weaving is a trade and a tradition intended for women. In this work, different vital and communicative spheres come into play; it not only covers a subject directly linked to corporeality, but also crosses an axis of family interaction and memory: the body-work relationship is vital given that from childhood, weavers acquire the specific and exclusive skills to be able to perform and maintain the ideal body posture for working the backstrap loom.

The transversal axis of family memory is given by the material and symbolic transmissions of this tradition that is finally recreated in a cultural environment. For the weavers and their families this sheep wool is sacred. From a very young age the girls are accompanied by their mothers, who teach them the care and upbringing of the sheep, and the laborious process involved in the preparation of the threads: shearing, washing, shearing, carding, spinning, warping, weaving, fulling, thinning, shaking, dyeing and the subsequent assembly and sewing of the pieces.

This whole process is the heart of an ancestral legacy where family work in the artisanal tasks, together with the ritual sense of the clothes, give a high economic, symbolic and cultural value to the garments made by the artisans, in addition to a special meaning since around the elaboration of these outfits the transmission and survival of a tradition of weaving know-how is guaranteed.

Title: Weaving: Woman's Thoughts

Size: 160 x 200cms

Technique: Oil on canvas 

Description: When visiting the Sierra Nevada we can see very young girls weaving backpacks, developing their motor skills and sensitivity for this art-craft, but above all, weaving their thoughts into the life of the community. The weaving constantly recreates the history and memory of their people and keeps community ties alive. While weaving, individual and collective memory is being recreated.

The body of the backpack symbolizes the female uterus and the shape of the weaving represents the spiral of the Milky Way. As the Arhuaca women themselves affirm, “Symbolically the Arhuaca backpack is an extension of the uterus of the individual mother and the universal mother, and in it the three levels of meaning of the world are reflected: worldview, cosmogony and cosmology.” Women carry a backpack on their heads with the gauze close to their forehead, another backpack to carry the child on one side, and another to carry the harvest on the other side.

All the names of Arhuaco women begin with Ati, which means mother: Ati Nawowa is the owner of the backpack fabrics; Kaku is the father.In the mountains live the Kakus, while in the depths, in the lagoon and the sea, the Atis. This portrait needs to be read, understood and expressed in the dimension of the symbol that is crystallized in the daily ritual that is weaving. Thus, in weaving, the link between heaven and earth is constantly recalled.

Title: Muk' Ta Luch

Size: 166 x 200cms

Technique: Oil on canvas

Description: The symbol that serves as the background for this Tzotzil girl represents the Mayan universe, used since the classical period of that culture in the city of Yaxchilán by Queen Kabal Xook. This symbol represents the sunrise from the sky to the underworld through time and space.

The muk'ta luch is a repetitive design in the shape of a rhombus, called a large brocade (muk'ta luch). It is made by women on a backstrap loom, a manifestation of the quincuncial Tzotzil cosmology: according to contemporary weavers, its design represents the earth, the center and the orbit of the sun. In the traditions of America, weaving is one of the movements of thought.

Thought is woven; a thinking heart that reminds us that we live and are one. It could be considered as a thought based on matter where the symbols of culture present the path of daily life and always remind us of the cultural belonging received in the family heritage, from mothers and grandmothers to daughters and granddaughters. These woven symbols are kept in individual and collective memory; then it is about something more than a job, it is the life of people and communities. In each symbol, culture is woven and when we carry it, it is recorded in the memory of the heart. Thus, when weaving, we remember; when we remember, we go through the heart again. 

The weavers have been conceived, born and raised among threads and backstrap looms; they bring the memory of twisting, warping, assembling and weaving the threads on the loom. In their communities, they are born with a trade that will choose them to exercise it. Hence the imprint of weaving: the work of women in their family, following the path that leads to the joy of the heart. Each word and each symbol brings the power to facilitate concentration, skill, delicacy, precision and many hours of work in each fabric and embroidery.

Title: Vision of the Cosmos

Size: 180 x 210cms

Technique: Oil on canvas 

Description: They say that an indigenous grandfather is a basket full of seeds that he scatters in each of his acts, words or gestures. During the yagé ritual he spreads the seeds of thought of life that he has harvested during his existence; when he tells his stories he looks at a horizon that is within himself, since he has understood that it is there where the cosmos is.

In each word, story or tale we see the world through his eyes because he has the gaze of a hunter, he stalks, celebrates the prey and teaches what he has learned. A taita-grandfather of the indigenous traditions of the sacred plant of yagé or ayahuasca is a being who has been given the understanding of the unity of feeling.

He communicates with plants, minerals and animals, and his paraphernalia reflects this connection. He comes from another world; It is the result of the visions of heaven and earth that he has received. In that timeless place is his throne. His investiture is a mirror of what is reflected in the sky. Plants, animals and vegetables hang from his body, which is in itself his totem. He has carved a body where the totem becomes flesh. 

The outfits worn by the Taitas are ritual objects that beautify, protect and grant states to heal, guide and transform. Many of these garments contain “prayers” that manage to channel the energy and spirit of different animals; such as birds, the jaguar and the snake that with the sound of its rattles opens doors to states of sanction and purification, among others.Likewise, many of the designs of these ornaments: in terms of figures, color and shape, are codes and symbols given by medicine to weavers.