Michael Viola is a gay and Latino male artist, psychotherapist, shamanic practitioner and psychedelic integration
coach based in Portland, OR. He is trained as an herbalist and has a deep and intuitive connection with the Earth
and the natural world. His journey has taken him through the corporate and educational structures of NYC, the
desert of New Mexico and the jungle and Andean peaks of Peru. These spaces and cultures have influenced his
capacity to stretch, adapt, and energetically understand a wide range of consciousness as reflected in his vibrational
range. The work he does is intuitive, and empathic and smacks of a style well described as neo-primitive. He
facilitates peoples’ opening to higher consciousness in all of the complimentary work he does as an artist, therapist,
and healer. As a visual artist he paints, draws, and designs work that shifts/challenges viewers’ perspectives as
multilayered pieces, a journey really. As a therapist and healer he works with groups and individuals facilitating a
connection to their transpersonal consciousness. He is grateful that these disciplines, seemingly disparate, that he’s
been pursuing for the past twenty years have finally come together.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I view art and its creation as an act of transcendence. It is a way to draw the sublime into the material and for the
the physical to reach the numinous. As an intuitive artist, I experience the world empathically/psychically. Different
spaces are characterized by a particular resonance. I experience this vibrational energy within my body, and express
that energy in form, line, and color. These components are layered and come together and separate while viewing,
creating primal symbols, human/animal forms, and a general sense of layered construction. I refer to my work as
intuitive, neo-primitive, and energetic.
Neo-primitive harkens back to the most basic of forms we can find etched like runes in stone and drawn in
charcoal on cave walls. Energy and consciousness reduced to its most basic forms of curves and lines and color. This
visual language was often expressed by shamans and medicine people recording their psychic journeys or intending
forms of energy into the world. They were conveying their physical and psychic worlds for posterity. Centuries
later, influenced by abstract, modern, and expressionist style and form it becomes my language to relate the
narrative of an analogous psychic space.
In life and in artistic practice I strive to draw my community into places of greater sensitivity and ultimately
empathy, through raising conscious awareness. I do this by bringing people closer to their own intuitive faculties.
The more sensitive they become the more they can understand the symphony of sentient consciousness that
makes up their world and how much of an impact they actually have. I find that the energy I embody challenges
perspective, and as a result draws people into a new place of self-awareness. I do this through the energy I embody,
the art I create, the transpersonal/spiritually/ceremonially rich lifestyle I lead, and how I share that with those I
encounter. Whether it’s through a shamanic drum journey workshop, empathic therapeutic reflection, or intuitive
artistic work, I am seeking to express and reflect the highest resonance I can hold and impart that truth with the
world. In my practice I express and advocate for three basic relationships: the truth in one’s heart, one’s truth in
community, and one’s responsibility as steward of the Earth. These tenets have guided my own creative journey as
healer and artist and is very much a lifestyle.
I honor the divinity in myself, in others, and in the natural world around me. This consciousness has a particular
resonance and it magnetizes the ethereal and the magical. I care about the Earth, I care about community,
sustainability, and the uniting of peoples by respecting the God spark in all of us.