The Essential Paul Laffoley

Book excerpt: Paul Laffoley is a Visionary artist who lives and works in a tiny space in Boston he calls "the Boston Visionary Cell." A trained architect, Laffoley produces brilliantly colored mandala paintings filled with symbols and texts. Each painting is accompanied by a tex called a "thought-form," which serves as commentary on the painting's content. The paintings--many of them large (73 x 73 inches)--have titles that range from the paranormal and arcane ("The Ectoplasmic Man," "The Sexuality of Robots") to the erudite: "De Rerum Natura," referring to the poet Lucretius. Laffoley is interested in "the mechanics of mysticism," time and space, dreams, magic, and consciousness. In addition to painting, he has also designed a time machine and a prayer gun. This book collects what Laffoley and his gallerist, Douglas Walla, see as "the essential works"--94 color plates w/91 attendant thought-forms. It also includes an introduction by Walla, a biography of Laffoley by artist Steven Moskowitz, and essays by two scholars. Linda Dalrymple Henderson (University of Texas at Austin, Art History) is a renowned expert on Henri Bergson, Duchamp, the art/science juncture, and "the fourth dimension." Arielle Saiber (associate professor of Italian, Bowdoin College) analyzes one Laffoley's major works: Dante's 'Divine Comedy' Triptych.