these visions of johanna have now conquered my mind

The Ayahuasca Paintings of Pablo Amaringo

Pablo Amaringo is a peruvian artist born in Puerto Libertad, a child of the amazon. From the age of ten he has been exploring his spiritual and emotional landscape through the visions induced by an entheogenic plant, Ayahuasca. His work tends to be colorful, intricate and rich with meaning, even when he lacks materials; when Amaringo first started drawing he worked with soot and an industrial byproduct, permatex. 

His paintings reveal a private world, vibrant and beautiful, obviously laden with significance but inexplicable without the key of Amaringo's Ayahuasca. Still, even though we're looking from the outside in through a tiny window, the glimpses we recieve through Amaringo's paintings are wonderous. 

In particular I enjoy the strong colours visible in much of his later work, bold and bright like a dream, convincing the viewer that they too are experiencing an otherworldly vision. While the religious and spiritual elements of many of these paintings are a bit beyond my abilities to comprehend, I'm still awed by the beauty of the works they inspire. 

A gallery of Pablo Amaringo's art can be found here. Pablo now teaches art for free at his Usko-Ayar school, which survives by donations.

- traze