The Art of Phago

An art that, even in a scientific age marked by rampant skepticism and pluralisation, is able to build bridges between the spiritual, materialistic and technological – this is the goal of painter and musician Phago.

Born in Turkey, Phago grew up in the company of the legendary whirling Dervishes. Eastern imagery, music – and in particular the spinning dance through which the Dervishes seek spiritual transcendence – left their mark on the infant artist.

Aged seven, Phago came to live in Germany, and by his high-school years was already seeking, through his art, A Harmony of Opposites. His subsequent medical studies and assimilation of Eastern philosophy and Sufism proved the catalyst in this aesthetic quest. In his theory and practice, ‘Phago Sufism’ was born.

In 1997, Phago began exhibiting at Hamburg’s Christ Church, an established multi-faith meeting place. And his reputation was quickly sealed – not just among the venue’s congregation, but also among northern Germany’s artistic community who instantly recognized and revered the vibrancy and profundity of his images.

Today, Phago is one of Hamburg’s most fashionable artists, exhibiting in high-profile private and public spaces across the city. In August 2006, Jaguar Cars hosted his World of Phago show. “You use a car to honour your body, you select a painting to honour your room,” is how he explained the synthesis between the venue and his work.

Phago’s signature images serve to infuse the scientific with the spiritual, inspiring in the spectator a contemplative, even meditative state of mind. Add the panoply of multi-cultural and multi-ethnic references that populate his creations, and you have a practitioner almost uniquely able to speak to both the classicist and the most modern aesthete.

GB Media international services Ltd sources and manages exhibition opportunities for Phago, in the UK and across the world.

Track playing: Into my Dream - Chris Le Blanc

Hadi Teherani: Lounge Music Vol1

www.phago.com