Rev. S. Johnson Leyba

Reverend Steven Johnson Leyba, painter, author performance artist and founder of the Coyotel Church, gave a presentation at Flambeau Noir in Portland, Oregon USA on the weekend of April 27-29, 2018.

Reverend Steven Johnson Leyba is a ritualistic, shamanistic painter of Mescalero Apache ancestry. His art is equal parts satanic, holistic, radical, political, and extremely personal. Utilizing various media, Leyba creates a celebration of the sacred and profane. Paint mixes with collage, beadwork, and DNA making bold statements about the world we live in and constantly questioning the very nature of Art.

One of the last priests ordained by Anton LaVey (Church of Satan, Satanic Bible) in 1992 started his own church in 2007 the Coyotel Church. First church of creative application. Leyba has been a outlaw radical force in art, religion, literature, the occult and philosophy for decades.

Since 1989, Steven Leyba has produced 16 handmade books, huge volumes of bound works on canvas. Forms of these have been published by Last Gasp and Coyotel Press in books containing commentary by William S. Burroughs, H.R. Giger, Poppy Z. Brite, Clive Barker, and Genesis P-Orridge. He has been the subject of media attention for his controversial approach and subject matter, and in 2002 a documentary was made about the artist titled, "Unspeakable: The Life & Art of Reverend Steven Johnson Leyba."

His works are multi-media explorations into the souls of both individuals and society as a whole. They are liberating, honest, and organic in experience, void of any censorship and defiant against those who would attempt it.

He became infamous In 1997 where he performed the legendary "Apache Whiskey Rite" at a political consultant's birthday party where he cursed the San Francisco 49ers. Well documented in the press and in the art book "COYOTE SATAN AMERIKA ; The Unspeakable Art and Performances" published by Last Gasp in 2001.

He is also author of the memoir "The Last American Painter; My Life as Sex, as Art, Religion and War" Co Authored "The Coyotel Way", "The Trickster`s Bible", "The Trickster's Koran" and "The Trickster's Torah."