Zachary Selig

Artist, author, and filmmaker Zachary Selig is one of the leading Kundalini authorities on Chakra and Color Philosophies. Zachary is a notable pioneer of Talisman and Magic Realism Portraiture painting in the contemporary art world and has a 25-year professional history as a fine artist painter, writer, and spiritual consultant for private clients worldwide. He delivers a universe of benefits through art, literary, and film venues by sourcing answers to Wellness challenges through his gift as a Spiritist. Zachary was born in Seguin, Texas with family background in New York, New York. He was educated in Preparatory at Colorado Academy, Denver, Colorado, in University at Transylvania College, Lexington, Kentucky, The University of Houston, Houston, Texas, in Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design, NYC, NY, in Drawing and Painting at The Art Students League of New York, NYC, NY, in Interior Design at The New York School of Interior Design, NYC, NY, and in Painting at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, France. He was trained from the age of 5 with tutorials in drawing, pastel, oil painting, and watercolor. His father Marvin Selig was a pioneer in Steel manufacturing since 1947, and merged his founding companies in 1968 with the NYSE Commercial Metals Company to become CEO of Commercial Metals Steel Group with various CMC board positions. He was a former President of The Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs in Washington, DC, a Texas Commissioner of the Lower Colorado River, and an Economic and Industrial Advisor to a number of governments in countries of Latin America, Europe, Mid-East, Asia, and to the UK. Zachary's mother was the late Eleanor Berg Selig, who was a Texas Commissioner of Mental Health under three US Presidents and instrumental with her political colleagues Ann Amstrong and the late Senator John Tower in establishing standards in State and Federal programs for public Mental Health Care in Texas during the 1960's. Both Ellie and Marvin Selig were in the Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred Horse breeding and racing business since 1950, and were involved with legalizing Pari-mutual Betting in Texas. The Marvin and Ellie Selig Center of Excellence in Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas was established in 2002. His uncle and aunt, the late Robert and Gertrude Fielding of New York, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, along with his aunt the late New York Publicist Lee Goode Kingsley, were responsible for introducing him at the age of 19 to the artists and noted celebrities they both patronized and publicized. Zachary's formative professional years of painting, metaphysical, and anthropological training were spent in the rarefied and esoteric world of famous Mexican Surrealist painters, metaphysical expatriate illegitimate British Royal Family members, and eccentric academic German aristocrats such as artists Pedro Friedeberg, Bridget Bate Tichenor, Leonora Carrington, anthropologist Baron Alexander von Wuthenau, art patron Baroness Maria von Wuthenau, and British art collector Edward James in Mexico. The Magic Realist painter Bridget Bate Tichenor spiritually adopted Zachary in 1971 and he became her protege until her death in 1990. He received some of his design training working in the studio of the late Cartier Designer Aldo Cippulo and from the Interior Design team of the late Mrs. Paul Mellon in NYC who taught him classic Trompe L'oiel painting techniques. Zachary's first commissioned Trompe L'oiel interiors were documented in a 1971 House Beautiful feature article on the residence of Mr. Cippulo in NYC. At 24, he worked as a Fashion Photographer's representative assistant for Francis Grill of the Click Agency in NYC; and, soon after he launched the career of Margaux Hemingway that changed his life forever. In return, the Hemingway family invited him to visit Sun Valley, Idaho in 1975, where he spent a year studying Kundalini Yoga and Meditation, which opened his life to spiritual pursuits and purpose. Zachary was initiated in 1976 as a Spiritist with specific Ancient Mystery School Solar Kundalini teachings by a group of Tarascan Indian mystics in a remote area near Zihuatanejo, Mexico for a 3-year period of time. His formative training in Psycho-Spiritual Mesoamerican Anthropology came earlier at the age of 16 from the late author and Professor Baron Alexander von Wuthenau at The University of the Americas in Mexico City. He later became a Yoruba Priest after completing a 9-year initiation process in the Caribbean and the US. His paintings are commissioned with primarily private showings, yet occasionally are publicly hung in exhibitions such as "The Seven Chakras and Seven Rays" - Canyon Ranch Spa, Tucson Arizona 1981, Relaxatia - Urban Yoga, Los Angeles, California 1990, "Hollywood - Portraits of the Stars" at Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles 1988, "Encanted Landscapes" - Versace, Beverly Hills, California 1990, and are for the most part in important privately held collections such as those of Isabel Patino Goldsmith - UK/México, Baroness Maria von Wuthenau - Mexico, Joan A. Quinn - US, Art Dealer James Corcoran - US, Baroness Kristine von Jutrcenzka - Germany, and the late Prince Egon von Furstenberg - Italy. Zachary's expertise as a Spiritist facilitated his establishment of an unprecedented codex of the human chakra system and the solar rays to activate Kundalini in the only color-coded paintings of their kind. He authored the literary keys to the paintings in the Relaxatia meditation formulas that direct and operate the lexicon. In 1979, this genesis of work became the foundation for his life's direction in the Relaxatia corpus of art, literary, film, and Web intellectual properties that he later created. The first of these works emerged into the derivative book "Kundalini Awakening - A Gentle Guide to Chakra Activation and Spiritual Growth" - Bantam/Random House 1992. He has spent the last 12 years compiling his autobiographical prescriptive book "Relaxatia" , completed in 2002; his first animated 'Wellness Film' for Web application Relaxatia.com; and, a Wellness Feature Animated Film, On-line Game, and public education applications that will follow. Zachary Selig is the owner, writer, and producer of the live action feature film property "Bridget Bate Tichenor - The Magic Realist Painter"created in 2000.