Biography
Michel de Saint Ouen was born in Central Africa and educated in France. Self-taught and with a unique way with inks, his work has been widely exhibited and is in many important collections. A critic once described him as a phantasmagorical symbolist.
He now lives in London and has taken on the editorship of the Society’s magazine Inscape. He is also Chairman of the Society for Art of Imagination.
For many years he has searched for a way to portray the Western Occult Tradition. Magic is, and always will be, a fundamental mainspring of human aspirational behavior, and the most potent symbol of the Western Tradition is the Holy Grail.
The origin of the Holy Grail cannot be traced to a given point in time or space, but the hold it has exercised on the imagination of Western culture has spanned centuries.
From the Celtic belief that the Grail was a cauldron which held the secret of Life and Death, and promises of sharing the gods’ table, to the Christian interpretation which links the Grail with the chalice in which some of Christ’s blood was collected, or that it is an emerald from the crown of Lucifer – the Lightbringer – which fell to earth when he was expelled from heaven, the goal is consistent – the Grail is a life-enhancer, bringing changes and enlightenment to those who seek it.
The search is often long and arduous and can take the seeker through many levels of experience.