Our Story

 

Prof. Phil, while still a teenager in 1973, began studies in Mischtechnik painting with Ernst Fuchs in Austria. Later, in 1997 Ernst Fuchs requested that Prof. Phil formally carry on his teachings in the Mischetechnik (painting in egg tempera and oil) and Philip has been holding his renowned Old Masters – New Visions international painting seminars ever since. In 2011, his wife, Mantra Cora, a Polish artist then living in England, attended one of Prof. Phil's Old Masters -New Visions seminars in Austria. In 2012, Philip relocated from the USA to England to live with Mantra and she joined him in organizing and teaching in the international seminars.  Mantra also spent time in Macerata that year, studying at the Bell' de Arte University there, followed by 4 months assisting Ernst Fuchs at his studio at the Pallfy Palace in Vienna.  In 2016, along with their daughter, Liya, they moved to the USA and lived in Tucson, Arizona. That same year the couple got married in Las Vegas. They have been offering 3 day workshops, 2, 3 and even 4 week painting retreats on various methods and materials of painting and with students painting from Classical to Abstract to Visionary subject matter. They have held seminars in the USA, Austria, Germany, Bali, Spain - Ibiza, Russia, Italy, Bermuda, India and Greece.

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Aside from teaching, organizing international painting seminars and coordinating exhibitions for other artists, Mantra Cora and Prof Phil also exhibit their work in shows and are co-partners in passing on their broad and extensive knowledge of painting. During the seminars, they impart a knowledge of 'Mischtechnik' ("Mixed Technique" of egg tempera and resin-oil painting) in a number of versions, as well as many other approaches, such as Tempera Grassa, Alla Prima, Grisaille, Brunaille, and contemporary innovations of their own. They sometimes even merge Renaissance and 19th-century methods in drawing and painting creating intuitive grounds with similar effects as that of a Rorschach Test that serves as a matrix and jump off point from the unconscious and/or non-ordinary states of consciousness. 

 

In these seminars and retreats, 'Psyche' and its handmaiden, 'Techne', work in total harmony. The courses are taught in English and instruction is tailored to each participant's unique visual language and spirit.  It is not a one-size fits all formula that is found in too many seminars and academies today. Mantra's and Prof Phil's approach inspires a serendipitous process in painting that combines preparation with a natural, intuitive and spontaneous execution, enabling the student to achieve imagery that can run the spectrum from a 'mystical precisionism' to a vibrant abstract painting; from a classical realism to an expressive and raw emotional work. The painting is infused with an 'inner light' in the underpainting, serving as a mirror to the human spirit. Today this way of painting is considered to be a sacred knowledge by Classical, Fantastic and Visionary artists alike.