I discovered Mati Klarwein’s work 3 years ago while I was surfin’ the interwebs lookin for visual inspiration.I felt like I struck gold when i discovered his beautiful paintings. I decided to finally make a post about him because I’ve been noticing a lot of people posting his images on tumblrs and fbook but i don’t think they have a clue as to who the artist is.

Mati Klarwein is that visionary painter dude period. Klarwein was born April 9, 1932 in Germany and died March 7. 2002 in spain. He spent most of his life painting and traveling the world. He’s the guy who gave us some of the most amazing album covers; Santana’s “Abraxas” (released Sept. 1970) album , Miles Davis Bitches Brew (April 1970) and many more. In an interview on his site this is what he had to say about psychedelics.

Although considered a psychedelic artist by some, when asked in an interview “How do you feel about being classified as a psychedelic painter?” his response was:

I think it’s subjective. Anybody can classify me as they wish. In the fifties I was classified as an illustrator, even though my work consisted of paintings. And in the sixties my work was classified as psychedelic. So I took psychedelics to find out what it was all about. I found out I couldn’t paint on them. I’ll tell you about a funny episode. Jean Houston and Robert Masters put together a book called Psychedelic Art in the sixties, and they came to me. They did an interview with me, like we’re doing now, to include me in their book. And they asked me, “What kind of psychedelics do you take when you’re painting?” And I said, “I don’t take anything when I’m painting. When I take psychedelics I get very horny, and I start going out to nightclubs and cruising.” (laughter)

http://www.an-mag.com/matiklarwein/