User:Devakrishna

Devakrishna Marco Giollo was born in Bellinzona, Ticino, Switzerland in 1953.

In 1970 he studied at the Architect School STS of Trevano, but left after a year realizing that the intensive technical studies were not going to be his real calling.

In 1971 in Lugano he joined the School of Art CSIA, where he got trained with some of the best contemporary artists and teachers such as Nag Arnoldi, Piergiorgio Piffaretti, Giuliano Togni, Daniele Cleis, Emilio Rissone, Gianni Realini, Livio Bernasconi, Bruno Monguzzi and many others.

In 1973 he won the second prize for sculpture at the Villa Saroli Exhibition.

In 1974 he won the Bariffi Prize and one of his works was accepted and produced in the size of 3 x 15 meters sculpture at one of the 2 restaurants of the Congress House of Lugano.

Even though this would have been his entry ticket into the Swiss art scene, he left Switzerland, that year, sensing that art alone would never really be enough and that he had to travel.

This he did over the next 3 years, journeying penniless overland through Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India and then most of South-East Asia. On the way he lived with Afghani tribal warriors and Indian Sadhus, travelling from the Himalayas to the driest deserts and from deep forests to deserted beaches. He lived simply and experienced all his desires totally and fully.

However It was only in 1976 that he was first able to quench the thirst that had been continuously driving him in Pune, India. He met Osho, the radical mystic and spiritual master. From then until Osho’s death in 1991, he lived and worked with him in the communities Osho founded in India and in Oregon, USA. He changed his name to Devakrishna and practiced all the meditations Osho had to offer. During these years he continued to create art as well a lot of music, but the main focus now was to learn how to live life totally in the 'here & now', and how to clean up one’s emotional garbage. How to increase awareness and to witness one’s own body, mind and feelings, living directly in touch with one’s own bio-energy. In essence, the learning -then and now- is about who we really are, where we come from and where we go.

One day he heard Osho say:

"There are two types of creators in the world:

one type of creator works with objects - a poet, a painter, they work with objects, they create things;

the other type of creator, the mystic, creates himself, he works with the subject; he works on himself, his own being.

And he is the real creator, the real poet, because he makes himself into a masterpiece.

Art can be divided into two parts.

Ninety-nine percent of art is subjective art.

Only one percent is objective art.

The ninety-nine percent subjective art has no relationship with meditation. Only one percent objective art is based on meditation.

The subjective art means you are pouring your subjectivity onto the canvas, your dreams, your imaginations, your fantasies. It is a projection of your psychology. The same happens in poetry, in music, in all dimensions of creativity - you are not concerned with the person who is going to see your painting, not concerned what will happen to him when he looks at it; that is not your concern at all. Your art is simply a kind of vomiting. It will help you, just the way vomiting helps. It takes the nausea away, it makes you cleaner, makes you feel healthier. But you have not considered what is going to happen to the person who is going to see your vomit. He will become nauseous. He may start feeling sick". -- Osho

In 1982 he started traveling again all over the world, from Oregon to California, from New York to Sydney, and from Singapore to Hong Kong, exhibiting a variety of new styles of work in many countries. In 2000 he returned to Europe, first to Freiburg, Germany, then in 2003 to Switzerland where he now lives and works in his two ateliers in Schönenbuch (Basel Land) and Magadino (Ticino).

Giollo’s art continues to be inspired by Osho’s teaching-more and more concerned with beauty and a peaceful, silent space of meditation. It is this dimension, in stark contrast to the art-worlds’ pretensions of constant ‘novelty’ and ‘meaning’, which he hopes to share. As he himself says;

"For me painting is a meditative act not different from cleaning the dishes or my teeth, working in my garden. When I paint I am totally lost in the act of painting. It is a ’no- mind’ experience. What I am left with afterwards is a canvas that wants to go, wants to make someone or some place happy. When that happens I feel honored and grateful; I feel I gave a little something, a little beauty to the world."

View Giollo's Art at:

GiolloContemporaryArt