Surrounded
by the majestic mountains of the Austrian Alps Simon Hafele was born in 1985 in
the western part of Tyrol where he found inspiration in the picturesque beauty
of the fundamental elements of nature. As a child he couldn’t keep his hands
off crayons, a passion which he continued to pursue while attending Elbigenalp,
a carving school with a 4 year duration. There he could explore his artistic
pathway, causing Simon to seal his own fate—he would follow the calling of his
soul and devote his life to art. After having travelled to India, Cambodia,
Nepal, Thailand and Laos for longer periods of time, Simon brought back the
kind of inspiration, which would turn out to be vital for his evolving.
Numerous experiments with different types of colours and light preceded his
unique style—a visual language that translates the in-between, the
transcendental experience of (yet) unexisting worlds into intriguing paintings
with bright and often fluorescent colours, leaving behind an unmistakable trace
of recognition. In 2015 »Vision Scientist« was born, a project dedicated to
creating huge ceiling designs for festivals, and soon there were bookings
lining up from the most famous Psytrance festivals in the world, like »Antaris
Project« in Berlin—Germany or »ReSPect Festival« in Brazil. Simons »Visionary
Psychedelic Art« is a practice, where the artist reveals his soul and shares
his insights of a nonmundane reality. In Simons paintings the vivid colours
reflect the artists desire for colourfulness in all aspects of life, which he
then transforms into an invitation for the viewer to access alternate realms
and otherworldly dimensions. The conundrum of his breath-taking work reveals
itself by surrendering to feeling: like in life—love, the mother of all
emotions— is all spectators need to decode the overwhelming sceneries in Simons
paintings. His works consume the viewer, offering a tender relationship between
artwork and spectator, where they can lose themselves, wander in multiverses
and simultaneously float back to the present moment, only to find more pathways
down to the essence of life: truth
