Alex Grey (born November 29, 1953) is an American artist best known for his paintings of organic spiritual and religious themes, as well as for his collaborations with the band Tool on their 1996 album Ænima and 2001’s Lateralus.
Alex Grey was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Albert and Rita (née Rowland) Grey. He has one brother, Paul, who currently resides in France. Albert was a professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, and Rita was a student who became both his model and a major influence on his work. Grey graduated from The Putney School in Vermont in 1971 and then attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Medford/Somerville campus.
The cover artwork for Tool’s album Lateralus shows what appears to be a micrograph of a neuron firing; it was created by Grey using a scanning electron microscope . According to the book Inside Tool , this image is actually a composite of many different neurons created by Grey using Photoshop .
In 1978 Alex married Judith Anne Morris, whom he met at Tufts University. Their son Devon Alexander was born on September 15, 1982. In 1987 he met Allyson Rymland Klassen through mutual friends; in
Alex Grey is one of the most influential contemporary artists in America. He was born on August 7, 1953 in Boston, Massachusetts. From an early age he was interested in art. His father was a commercial artist and his mother studied art from time to time, so both were able to provide him with encouragement and guidance as he began to develop his skills.
Alex Grey is an American visionary artist and author born on August 7, 1953. He grew up in Norwood, Massachusetts and attended the Philadelphia College of Art (1973-1975). In 1975, he moved to New York City where he worked as a portrait artist for over 10 years. In 1985 he moved to Aspen Colorado where he continues to live with his wife Allyson and son Skye. Alex has been a part of the psychedelic art movement since its inception in the late 1960
Alex Grey is an American visionary artist, author and spiritual activist. He is best known for the paintings he has created since the 1970s, inspired by esoteric visions which detail a wide array of philosophies and spiritual concepts. In his paintings, he explores consciousness, the human body and mind, mysticism, sexuality and ecology.
Alex Grey has been a major part of the American “psychedelic art” movement since the late 1960s. His art appears in many public collections including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The Smithsonian Institution, The British Museum in London, The Getty Center in Los Angeles and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Grey’s paintings have been featured on album covers such as Tool’s Ænima as well as being shown in film such as David Lynch’s Inland Empire.*
Grey is also a prolific author and has published a number of books on art theory. His most recent book project is Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey – co-authored with his wife Allyson Grey – which was published in 2006 by North Atlantic Books.*
In December 2006 Grey exhibited a new series of paintings at the Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center entitled “Theologue”, which explored the nature of theology through images based on
Alex Grey is an American visionary artist. His paintings, sculptures, and digital art explore the universal mystical tradition through symbolic images and motifs. He has been called “the most adventurous and influential artist of his generation” by J.G. Ballard and “one of the leading figures in the renaissance of psychedelic art” by Albert Hofmann.
His work has been exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Royal Academy in London, the Louvre in Paris, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Most recently his work has appeared in major exhibitions at The Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome (2011), The Long Museum of Fine Art in Shanghai (2012), and The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (2013).**
Grey’s paintings have been shown most recently at The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City (2013), The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) at UC Berkeley (2014), The Frye Art Museum in Seattle (2014), and The Long Museum of Fine Art China (2014).**
**Grey’s first solo museum exhibition was held at the Centre Georges Pompidou from April 2012 to September 2012.*
In the early 1960s, Alex Grey began his spiritual journey. Since then he has traveled a long and winding road, one whose twists and turns resonate with the shift in consciousness that is occurring in our modern world. His art is a mirror of this journey.
A self-described spiritual anarchist, Grey has created a visual language to communicate his ideas about the nature of consciousness and the human experience. His images have been described as “visionary” because they seem to tap into the viewer’s own repressed memories or dreams.
This language is rooted in Grey’s study of Eastern philosophies and religions, as well as Western systems such as alchemy, Kabbalah and Jungian psychology. He believes that our current state of consciousness (our culture) is based on a cultural pathology – a distortion or perversion of what is natural (our biology). This imbalance creates a duality and separation between the body and mind that creates psychological stress and blocks our direct experience with reality.[2] The images in his work are meant to help us re-establish this connection to reality.
*Biography*
Alex Grey was born in 1953, in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health and his mother taught art at the high school level. Alex’s parents were both from working-class families. They believed that their children should experience a broad exposure to culture – music, literature, art, and so forth.
Alex began drawing at the age of 3 and was first introduced to meditation when he was 6 years old. He has been meditating for over 40 years and currently practices Transcendental Meditation twice daily for 20 minutes each time.
Because of his parents’ interest in Eastern philosophy and religion, Alex grew up with a strong interest in spirituality. At the age of 12, he discovered psychedelic drug use (LSD) and began his own experimentation by the age of 15. He continued to use psychedelics regularly until the age of 24 (1975), when he experienced deep psychological problems as a result of drug abuse. Since that experience, he has not used any drugs, including psychedelics or cannabis. He stopped smoking cannabis in 1975 as well.
Alex became interested in medical entheogens (psychedelic substances used for spiritual purposes) at an early age because of his natural attraction to altered states of consciousness
