Barry William Hale has been described as an occult artist, while a superficially germane term; on closer inspection it radiates a self-consciously unwelcome specificity. Too redolent of those early twentieth century outsider artists whose work depended on visionary states, specific knowledge of ancient mysteries, or some other Qabalistic obscurity. Hale, it should be noted, has certainly done nothing to dissuade such labels, mischievously luxuriating in such terms when fitting. It is apparent from his biography that he is, for example, an outspoken member of the OTO. But such groups encourage individual exploration, undoubtedly an attraction to Hale whose very genealogy radiates the outlaw.

Hale was born to hardcore hippy parents, who lived on one of the first Australian communes, according to the artist his biological father was allegedly involved in distributing LSD to a grateful Australian hippie community. Hale was raised by an adoptive family of socialists and masons, but maintains contact with his expanded family.

In his studies ‘both esoteric and aesthetic’ he has explored yogic states and even undergone periods of sensory deprivation in specifically designed laboratories. These, and other, intense methods of self investigation have led to Hale working with neuroscientists to investigate bio-feedback while in deep meditative states. In addition he is a student of the Chinese martial art. Choy Lee Fut, rumored to be the preferred fighting style of the Triads.

Hale’s work is not a mere rendition of the hermeneutics of high ritual magic, rather Hale gravitates to sorcery, to Haitian voudon, to Congolese palo mayombe, to folk forms of religious expression and ecstatic explorations that owe more to the oral traditions of the disenfranchised slave communities than to arcane studies in dusty libraries. This is not to suggest that Hale is not a scholar of the western esoteric tradition, but rather that he has explored and worked with other forms.

But folk magic emerging from the Mexican barrio and the New Orleans ghetto makes sense when considering Hale’s work, with its material emphasis on what is condescendingly referred to as ‘craft’ and that which many ethnographers would still in their arrogance label as ‘primitive culture’. From his experiences in Haiti and New Orleans, Hale has produced a series of voodoo bourbon bottles, their labels painted with the signs and images of Loa. A tribute to the culture and to the artist’s experiences both autobiographical and magical. Other works involve cutting paper silhouettes, a form of expression common in the magical rituals of the Mexican Limpas, but Hale’s paper-cuts depict the pantheon of plague demons of the Middle Ages. For his published debut he has chosen this remarkable work, depicting the 49 Servators of Beelzebub taken from The Book of Abramelin, combing the central magical tome with the artwork more familiar with the barrio. Hale mixes rigorous scholarly research into the Book of Abramelin with the chthonic pantheon of Mexico, presenting his own vision.

Barry Hale’s influences are, however, far more than just variations on indigenous forms. This is not glib orientalism, smug tourism or hip voyeurism. Looking at his work it is unsurprising to discover Hale trained to be a tattooist, the bold graphic style echoing the classic flash-sheets of the old school skin-and-ink artist. And there is more at play here, sideshow art, underground comic books, fifties men’s magazines, industrial logos, and Tijuana Bibles are all evident in his iconographic reservoir. His predecessors are underground comic book artists such as Robert Williams and the Coop, as well classic occult artists such as Austin Spare and Rosaline Norton. Barry Hale immerses himself in popular art even while creating images that are bewildering in the occult complexity of their significance. Thus a design he produced for the Oceanic Lodge of an OTO depicts the delicious curves of a voluptuous naked pomba-gira, the delicate petals of indigenous Australian flower the waratah, the dove, and the radiating light of knowledge. This juxtaposition of images both sacred and profane formed the design for a t-shirt, a medium and form more often associated with the biker-gang or punk band than that with a magical order. While designs and illustrations for the highly acclaimed Oceanic Currents issue of the Waratah journal reveal an artist of exceptional sensibilities.

This embrace of outlaw pop-culture extends into the dissemination of Hale’s work. During his one-man exhibition in Sydney’s Front Room Gallery, at which Hale exhibited some seven hundred automatic drawings, which looked like a bastard cross between Austin Spare and Savage Pencil, Hale employed a Carney-style barker. The barker’s role was to cajole and rile the audience at the gallery, while swigging rum and hollering his-own version of the apocalypse to the surprise and entertainment of the assembled crowd.

Hale’s work across various manifestations and themes – is about demons and apocalypse. The avatars of liberty, and the moments of true liberation , freeing and illuminating the human spirit.

Jack Sargeant.
originally appeared in “Barry William Hale Heralding The Apocalypse Exhibition”
March 15th - March 20th 2004
THE HORSE HOSPITAL, London UK.

Although Hale does not intend to proselytize or convert he does want to make occult symbolism and ritual more accessible and understood. He feels that esoteric and occult traditions should be more readily acknowledged as part of the spectrum of world religions, and because occult symbols and rituals are frequently sensationalized and stripped of religious context, greater understanding of them would confer legitimacy and respect. In this he is not wrong, yet part of the raw power of Hale’s art is that it taps directly into the hidden and secret. It is intense, amazing, and, to be frank, kind of scary. Yet the audience is not forced into to taking any sort of theological position on what they are experiencing.

Hale has noted that his art has impacted people from many different backgrounds and walks of life, and attributes this not to the performative qualities, but to the innate ability of esoteric material to move some people: “ …it is always surprising who this type of art speaks to, more often than not it is people that you would not expect. I think that it has something to do with how esoteric content touches some cultural archetypal substrate or resonates some chord.” Others respond to the universal elements of his performances, those that impact the body and speak to the senses. Hale has theorized that people who have had experience with ecstatic religious traditions may more readily understand and appreciate the performances. Even if the audience does not fully apprehend the occult context and meaning of NOKO210s magical operations, the performances still grab people and the magic still works. The very best occult art is in some way dangerous and working its power from the margins, because it dares to be directly in conversation with the engines of the universe. Artists working in this tradition do not simply offer an experience of what an enchanted and magical life might be like in another time or place, they provide the possibility of joining them in work that might well shake the foundations of the cosmos.

The Blissful Company of Demons: The Dynamics of Occult Performance
in the Art of Barry William Hale
• Amy Hale

Speculative Arts Research • Issue 2 • 01-15-2019 Speculative Arts Research • Issue 2 • 1-15-2019

Legion 49 Sculptures and Conjuration of BEELZEBUB installed at the scope art fair 2016 NY,
Stephen Romano gallery.

"Dwellers on the Threshold" Automatic drawing Triptytch, marker or paint on card, with photographic print of magical caligraphic ritual floor design. 2019

This work juxtaposes purely calligraphic elements and automatic drawings together. It also exploits the relationship between automatic writing and drawing. I have included a chapter from one of my unpublished papers below on automatic drawing.

The Devils Hand - Preoccupations of pen, ornaments of borredom, and the doodle are a creative expression born of the unconscious mind. The doodle is an unfocused drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied they can be concrete representations or abstract, daydream drawings. Etymologically this word is derived from wasting time or being lazy. An escapist occupation. Hence I have adopted the term the idle hand as a pun on the saying that the idle mind is the playground of the devil.

Kenneth Clark & A.E. Popham says that doodles were like the random flotsam of the unconscious mind that rises and float on the surface. Treated as if it was a natural and spontaneous phenomenon, was in many respects an invention, a concept at a certain point became extremely popular. With the rise in the popularity of Graphology in the early part of the 20th C which combined with virgining psychoanalytic ideas about free association and unconscious thought.

The term Graphology is drawn from the conjunction of the ‘Graph’ the Greek word for writing, and ‘logos’ speech. Therefore, could be interpreted as the speech drawn from writing and in the case of graphology it’s meaning is derived from the vocabulary of the pen.

Graphology is a pseudoscientific study and analysis of handwriting, especially in relation to psychology. It is reputed to have diagnostic abilities to determine the character of a person and applied to the field of medic for example tracking disease especially of the brain and nervous system. Graphologists evaluate the pattern form, movement, rhythm, and consistency of the graphic strike in terms of psychological interpretations. Positing the ‘ideomotor effect’ Graphologist believed that writing was mostly out of the control of the subject and that the movements involved in writing are organized by the central nervous system. Like handwriting the doodle was seen to have peculiarities unique to the hand from which they came, was cast into a particular context of psychological interpretation. Doodles combined with the influence of Graphology and a generalized version of Freudian psychoanalysis provided and interpretative framework. Creating the capacity for the doodle to reveal something of the individual that otherwise might be hidden

At the same time in which an interest in doodles was increasing in popularity, this was reflected in the field of modern art; with the likes of Kandinski, Klee and Miro, and among the Avant-guard especially within the artistic movements of Da Da and Surrealism. The centrality of Automatism within the Surrealist movement is well documented, Breton’s application of the techniques of Automatism within an Artistic context and the replacement of spiritual agency with Freudian model of the unconscious and furthermore viewed their artistic method as a true expression of the unconscious and outside of conscious control…..

Italo Calvino asked that they be considered imaginative musings as points of knowledge and the subconscious instrument of knowledge. The doodle was conceived as a creative expression of the unconscious mind and enabling it to be rendered itself in a symbolic expression. A form of communicating with images rather than words. The doodle may therefore be conceived as the beginning of something both tangible and ambiguous. Although doodling began as a reaction against the rules of writing, it also colludes with it. An idle preoccupation that occupies the margins and spaces of the written page becomes an ornament of boredom. An expression of hidden dispositions of a private and secret nature. The doodle allows the hand to work rather than the mind, bypassing the conscious becoming the self-indulgent hand of the escapist. Paradoxically the daydream drawing has been shown to aid concentration on something other than itself. The doodle like automatism in all of its varieties are almost all accompanied with altered or disassociated states. Mason reports a mediumistic state and a compulsion in the execution of his automatic drawing; the same can be said of the doodles, being dictated or the result of some obscure compulsion. The doodle seems to unfold autonomously independent of their creators will.

Prinzhon says of the doodle is at its rudimentary form of the ‘configurative urge’ .

The modern phenomenon of the doodle has much earlier antecedents with the drolleries found inhabiting the margins of the illuminated medieval manuscripts . These decorative thumbnail images primarily consisting of a menagerie of fantastical creatures, hybrid mixtures of different animals, animal and human beings, animals, plants and/or inorganic things. Often these ornaments of the page bore a thematic connection with the subject of the text of the page. Although some are effectively doodles added later. Drolleries are often called grotesques. The word ‘grotesque’ comes from the Latin root ‘grotto’ meaning a small cave. A strong influence upon these fantastical drolleries was the discovery of the caves of Domus Aurea in 15thC. These cave were richly adorned with strange creatures, unusual compositions and an unfamiliar form of Roman decorative arts. An unfinished palace complex full of frescos and wall decoration, and floor mosaic fascinated the public of the time. Vitruvius in 300 BCE dismissed the artistic content of these caves as meaningless and illogical. The discovery of these chambers inspired a proliferation of ornamentation with a strong emphasis on the Grotesque. Typified by chimeric monstrosities, decorative patterns using curving foliage and other elements.

Apomagdalie Demonomarchia: Marker on Napkin.

The name given to series produced upon Napkins or Serviettes with marker. The two mirrored sides are unfolded into a singular unexpected composition.

Ornaments of boredom produced by the preoccupations of the pen. Creative expressions born of the unconscious mind, a rudimentary form of the what Prinzhon calls the ‘con figurative urge’.
The doodle allows the hand to work rather than the mind, bypassing the conscious becoming the self-indulgent hand of the escapist. There are no preconceptions just the act of drawing itself – or drawing for drawings sake.

Apomagdalie

The earliest form of the word serviette was Apomagdalie. Which is very close to the Aramaic cognom -Magdalene. The idea that the Greek word 'Apomagdalie' the bread that was rolled to mop up the hands of the Spartans after dinner which was discarded as scraps for the dogs be equated with the Aramaic 'Magd'lya' was used in the Gospel of John in association with Mary Magdalene who prayed for the stone entombing Jesus after the Crucifixion to be rolled away - and it was. Being witness to his crucifixion, entombment and the miraculous resurrection of the Messiah.

From the food discarded for the Dogs rolled in soiled hands as shards of the Qilpoth to nourish the Hounds of Hell to the ‘Gift of the Goddess’ - The Queen of Heaven, from the Woman afflicted with seven demons who becomes ‘the apostle to the apostles’

Demonomarchia

Hybrid creatures in a state of flux and metamorphous, chimeric admixtures spring out of unnatural unions dissolving into different orders of being. Dissolving into and emerging from their backgrounds, blending into their surrounds, collapsing into their own scaffolding and merging into the frames. An unending March, a continuous movement, like a virus or contagion, there is warlike implication in the contentious liminal zone, inhabiting the borderland between the conscious and the unconscious. Arabesques interlaced with garlands and fantastical creature peering through the foliage of unknown gardens in a teratological masquerade. A subterranean dwelling place for the inhabitants of the recesses of the unconscious to emerge and populate the peripheries in a fantastical forest which is full of strange abominations.

Pomba-gira da Calunga Circular de Pontos Riscado: vinyl cut, 2017 permanent collection the buckland museum of witchcraft and magick, cleveland ohio.

“I had been taken by the Pomba – Gira in New Orleans, spying little red statues in a Voudon Botanica. I instantly fell in love” BWH Waratah II, Oceanic Currents, 2004, House 418

A little red statue in a Voudoun Botanica in New Orleans demanded my attention. Upon purchasing the icon I showed it to Voudoun Mambo Sally Anne who directed me to a small publication1 by The Technicians of the Sacred which was my introduction into the Pomba-Gira.

The Pomba-Gira is found in a variety of the Afro-Brazilian spiritual traditions such as Macumba, Umbanda and Quimbanda. The syncretic nature of these traditions blends African traditions with Roman Catholicism, Spiritism and indigenious American beliefs. Within this mix we also find the folk magic of the Iberian pennisula, the spellbooks of Saint Cyprian and european grimoires like The Grimorium Verum.

The little book provided me with a formula which was already somewhat familiar working with registras of spirits combined with my first hand experience of spirit possession within Voudoun ceremonies inspired me.

Having a name, spirit signature and a song I set about formulating a magical working my Lodge1. The form it took was a 49 day magical operation working with Exu and seven Pomba-Gira.

Each of the participants were to work with their respective Pomba-Gira on a daily basis and keep a dairy, a ritual was performed for each successive Pomba-Gira on Fridays, followed by a Group Sunday Ritual to the Pomba-Gira and Exu each week on Sunday for seven weeks beginning on Friday the 11th of September 1998 and concluded the Sunday after the last Friday on the 1st of November 1998. This 49 day operation was concluded with the performance of a public rite dedicated to Exu and the 7 Pomba-Gira which was celebrated in Newtown, Sydney, Australia.

The series of Pomba-Gira ‘Circular de Pontos Riscados’ was conceived from a Grand Pomba-Gira pontos which was constructed towards the end of the working which contained the individual pontos or spirit signature within. To evolve into a series of elaborate compositions which comprised of the song sigillized wound around the pontos or seal specific to the particular Pomba-Gira functing as a grand sigillic locus. Combining the traditions signature of the spirit and incorporating the application of sigillic technique popularized by Austin Osman Spare. Being myself an Occultist with strong artistic sensibilities I have over the years cultivated a rich and personalized sigillic technique.

Phantasma Phantasia: Milites Diaboli - [the soldiers of the Devil] Triptych” 2016 paint and marker on paper mounted on illustration board. collection of Stephen Romano

The title of the triptych tips its hat to the great Russian icon painting “Ecclesia militans” which commemorates the conquest of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible 1552.

A stylistic outgrowth of my automatic drawing process with the introduction of the vibrant translucent colours of HI-LITER pens. As if to re-enforce the link between text and image, automatic writing and drawing of Spiritualism and the Surrealists. Serving very much the same function of the pens, to make the text stand out without obscuring it.

Emergent figurations and filigraic flourishes have congealed to become a variety of different repetitive motifs that make up compositional palette of this Neo-Rococo work. A field of fleeting fanciful figures that frolic frivolously in endless exuberant ornamental elaborations gleefully extol the Body Grotesque. Executed with common place materials and mediocre medium, that serve to illuminate the marvelous miasmic mirage of mind manifesting.

Exhibitions and Performances

2019 “NO STARS” A TWIN PEAKS TRIBUTE EXHIBTION CURATED BY STEPHEN ROMANO IN COLLABORATION WITH REBEKAH DEL RIO. NY

2018 OPENING THE THIRD EYE 4 PERSON EXHIBTION CURATED BY STEPHEN ROMANO WITH THE WORKS OF BURT SHONBERG, WILLIAM MORTENSEN, CHARLES DELLSCHAU, WOFLGANG GRASSE, AND OTHERS. The Living Gallery NY

2018 NOCTEM DIABOLI The Living Gallery Outpost NY

2018 - DARK MOFO - Invisible House - Salamanca Art Centre, TAS, AUS

2018 - SCOPE ART FAIR 2018 - Stephen Romano Gallery, NY

2017 - William Mortensen and the Coven of the Sibylline The Living Gallery Outpost, NYC

2017 - DE DOMO DIABOLI - Curated by Stephen Romano NY The Living Gallery Outpost

2016 MATERIA PRIMA - Curated by Stephen Romano, BLAM BROOKLYN

2016 GALLERY III - Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn NY

2016 STAMIS FINIS - Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn NY

2016 THE CREEPy ROOM - Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn NY

2016 SAINT BOWIE - Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn NY

2016 CABINET of the SOLAR PLEXUS, Gallery X, Dublin, Ireland, UK

2016 THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS - Curated by Pamela Grossman, 80W Gallery New York University

2015 - HYROGLYPHICA - Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn NY

2015 - MAGICA SEXUALIS - Curated by Barry William Hale and Stephen Romano, Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn NY

2015 - LEXICON INFERNALI - Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn NY

2015 - OPUS HYPNAGOGIA - curated by Stephen Romano MORBID ANATOMY MUSEUM Brooklyn NY

2014 - I:MAGE 2, Fulgur Esoterica, Cob Gallery, London

2014 - CODEX 231 : Art Folio, Fuglur Limited

2014 - WINDOWS TO THE SACRED : Australian Touring Group Show, Mornington Pennisula, VIC, Regional Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Painting, Sculpture, Audio-visual, Installation, NOKO210 Ritual Performance.

2013 -WINDOWS TO THE SACRED : Australian Touring Group Show, Devonport Tasmania, Regional Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Painting, Sculpture, Audio-visual, Installation.

2013 -THE LANGUE VERTE : Art Exhibition Group show C777, Buratti Fine Arts Perth Australia. Prints .

2013 - THE NIGHTMARE PAINTING : Paintings of Aleister Crowley feat C777 Group Show, Queen Street Gallery in assoc with Buratti Fine Art, Sydney Australia. Paintings

2013 WINDOWS TO THE SACRED : Australian Touring Group Show, S.H.Ervin Regional Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Painting, Sculpture, Audio-visual, Installation, NOKO210 Ritual Performance

2013 CIRKOS : Solo show Paintings, Buratti Fine Arts, Perth, Australia. Paintings & Ink on Paper

2013 - I:MAGE Fulgur Esoterica, Store Street Gallery, London, U.K. Painting & Prints, NOKO210: Conjuration of Beelzebub AV premiere

2012 – WINDOWS TO THE SACRED, group show, Buratti Fine Art, Perth, mix media, prints, sculptures

2012 – WINDOW TO THE SACRED, group show, Buratti Fine Art, Perth, mix media, prints, sculptures

2012 –REVELATION FILM FESTIVAL, Perth, NOKO210 Ritual Performance

2011 – FRINGE Festival, Adelaide, four Ritual Performances, NOKO210

2010 – REVELATION FILM FESTIVAL, Perth, Animations

2010 – 17th AUSTRALIAN ART BIENNALE, Sydney, NOKO210 Ritual Performance

2010 – ESOTERIC BOOK CONFERENCE, Seattle, NOKO210 Ritual Performance

2010 – ESOTERIC BOOK CONFERENCE, Seattle, Artist Panel

2009 – EQUINOX FESTIVAL, Conway Hall, London, NOKO210 Ritual Performance

2008 – NOKO210 : PA GSQ, audio-visual project with Scott Barnes

2005 – OVII Exhibition, Hyper-contemporary Lodge, Sydney, mixed media and collaborative animation installation with Daniel Winter

2005 – Privately commissioned installation, Los Angeles

2005 – 7×3=21 Sq, Hyper-contemporary Lodge, Sydney Performance with Daniel Winter

2005 – OVIII Candid Arts Centre, mixed media, including sound and animation collaborations with Scott Barnes and Daniel Winter

2004 – HEAVEN & HELL II, The Artery, Melbourne, painting and animation

2004 – HERALDING THE APOCALYPSE, Horse Hospital, London, drawings and animation collaboration installation with Daniel Winter

2004 – Group Show, Knot Gallery, Sydney

2004 – EKTOPLASTIK, animation with Daniel Winter, screened at the Horse Hospital, London

2004 – OV3, Knot Gallery, Sydney, mixed media and NOKO210 Ritual Performance with Scott Barnes, Knot Gallery, Sydney

2004 – WARATAH No.2 Launch, Sydney, NOKO210 Ritual Performance with Scott Barnes

2003 – HEAVEN & HELL, Chrisse Chotter Gallery, Sydney, paintings

2003 – PERIPHERAL SPECTRES Exhibition, Front Room, Sydney, drawings

2003 – Group Show, Front Room, Sydney

1999 – Chinatown Lighting project, Conceptual consultant and artistic designer

1997 – NOKO MADA Exhibition, Polymorph, 4 year collaborative project-mix media collaborative with Scott Barnes, Michael Strum and Michelle Moo, Polymorph, Sydney

1995 – ASH, Polymorph, Sydney, prints & drawings

1990-1994 – SUBTERRIAN SERIES, Warehouse Redfern, Victoria Park, Sydney, Performances

– Performance collaboration, Jan Taylor Gallery, Sydney

– Performance collaboration, Gunnery, Sydney

– Performance collaboration, Airspace, Sydney

– Golem 1 & 2, Warehouse Redfern, Sydney

– Performance, Domain, Sydney

Publications and Presentations

2019 MUSIC, MAGICK & the MUSE, lecture National University of Australia

2014 - CODEX231, Fulgur Limited, Limited Edition Folio

2011 – MEON 3, audio-visual collaboration with Adi Newton from TAGC

2011 – Abraxas Journal No.2, Fulgur Limited, interview and signed silkscreen print for special issue

2010 – A Gathering of Masks by Robert Fitzgerald, Three Hands Press, artistic contributor (limited edition book)

2009 – Legion 49, Fulgur Limited, including NOKO210: order 41 CD in the deluxe issue (limited edition book)

2006 – Waratah No.3, art editor (limited edition journal)

2005 – NOKO210 7×3=21sq, with Scott Barnes and Daniel Winter (limited edition dual CD)

Thanks to J. kevin o’rourke, barry william hale, steven intermill and Jillian Slane, Jack Sargeant, amy hale, amie romano, Robert Fitzgerald, Lynsey Marie Jones, Michelle Moo, Scott Barnes.