Alex Grey is an artist, author, and teacher who has been producing visionary art for thirty years. His body of work spans a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, photography, digital art, drawing and printmaking.
He received a BFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and an MFA from the University of Cincinnati. He has had over 100 solo exhibitions and his work is in the collections of over seventy museums worldwide including the British Museum in London, The Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, LACMA in Los Angeles, The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, as well as numerous private collections.
Trip reports: This blog is written by Alex’s wife Allyson Grey. She travels with Alex to many of his exhibitions and begins each post with an account of her journey to that particular show and her interactions with Alex during the show’s progress.*
Alex Grey is best known for his paintings of the human body and its energy systems. He has had a successful career as an artist and author, the subject of several documentaries, including Sacred Mirrors. He has collaborated with his wife Allyson Grey on many of his paintings.
The Sacred Mirrors series is Alex Grey’s most ambitious work to date. The paintings are a synthesis of visionary experiences that span 25 years, beginning during a solitary retreat in 1974. The Sacred Mirrors consists of 20 canvases (16 feet long) that depict human beings and elements such as DNA, time, and space. The artworks are accompanied by essays written by Alex Grey. They can be seen at the Museum of Transcendental Art in New York City and also at Alex Grey’s website
“I used to draw cartoons,” Alex Grey told me. “I’d sit at the kitchen table with my mother, who was an artist and a teacher, and draw pictures of animals. I found it very satisfying.”
Why did he give up cartooning? “It felt like there was something more to do,” he said. “Something deeper.”
Alex is dreaming right now. He’s dreaming on his feet, in front of an audience, here on Day 2 of the MAPS Psychedelics Conference. He’s one of three speakers in the Visionary Art panel, his co-panelists being Ralph Metzner and Stanislav Grof. The moderator is Larry Brilliant, who is himself a visionary artist.
Oh yes—this is a dream come true for Alex. Completely. In fact, it feels like he’s been preparing for this moment all his life. But he hasn’t! Not really! And that’s part of the story he’s about to tell us: how a little kid from Ohio who grew up more interested in cartoons than philosophy or mysticism came to be standing here today in front of 400 people in a huge ballroom at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, explaining to us what it feels like to have a vision.
Alex Grey is a visionary artist and the author of The Mission of Art. He has been described as “the Renaissance man of the 21st century” by The Huffington Post and as “a contemporary Hieronymus Bosch” by Psychology Today.
The husband-and-wife team have been collaborating for over 35 years on a wide variety of projects including painting, sculpture, performance art and music. Their work has been featured in publications including Time Magazine and Rolling Stone, as well as in films by David Lynch, Werner Herzog and Michael Stipe (R.E.M.). They are represented by galleries in New York City, Philadelphia, London, Brussels and San Francisco.
Tattooed yoga instructor: Yoga and tattoos are about living your best life possible, being flexible enough to accept change when it comes along and working hard to be the best you can be
A tattoo is forever: The permanence of tattoos gives them more meaning than clothing choices or hairstyles that can be changed at whim
Consistent self-image: Tattoos are often reflections of an individual’s personality or beliefs; they help people project a defined self-image to the outside world
Yoga teacher: People look down on tattoos because they are afraid of being judged for their own body
Alex Grey is an artist and author. He is best known for his paintings of religious, spiritual, and mystical themes, as well as for co-founding the New York City art collective “Awareness Collective,” which produced the Serpent Project. His website quotes: “I believe that art is a spiritual technology that can transform consciousness and create a bridge to the evolutionary process.”
Terence McKenna was an American philosopher and ethnobotanist. He was a proponent of psychedelic drugs like DMT and psilocybin mushrooms as aids to spiritual enlightenment. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, plant religions, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, culture, technology and time.
Many people consider him to be one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. His obituary in Rolling Stone called him “the most popular countercultural philosopher.”
This blog represents some kind of picture Alex Grey’s artwork based on McKenna’s books and articles.
Alex Grey, a famous visionary artist, has been painting for over thirty years. Some of his art is so beautiful and profound, it is almost impossible to fathom the depth that Alex goes into when he paints. Alex finds his inspiration in many places, but one of the most common themes throughout his art is death and rebirth. His paintings always have a very spiritual undertone and are commonly associated with the Hindu and Buddhist belief systems. Many of his pieces also depict various stages of the human life cycle; birth, life, death, and rebirth.
Alex Grey has created much more than just paintings, though. His works include many sculptures and even some music. The two main instruments in his music are the Tibetan Singing Bowls and Tibetan Bells. The bowls and bells create a very meditative tone that helps one to relax into a deeper state of consciousness so that they may perceive a greater level of reality which lies beyond our normal everyday perceptions.
Alex Grey’s artwork is extremely popular around the world. His art has been used by several different bands as album covers including Tool, Pearl Jam, Marilyn Manson, Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails. Alex’s artwork has also been featured on
We have been commissioned to create an image of the creator (God) and the created (the universe). The piece is to be used on a large archival print, as well as a 6′ x 8′ mural.
I have conceptualized this image as Creator/Creation and it’s been a challenging task to represent both sides of the relationship in a single image that is aesthetically pleasing. The Creator side of this relationship is represented by a semi-transparent form, with a subtle human face emerging within it. From the top of this form there are seven branches, each representing one of the seven chakras or energy centers in the body. With each branch there is also an additional layer of semi-transparent light that emanates from its center and extends outward to the periphery. I have also incorporated hands on three of these branches, which are open to receive energy from Creation and transmit energy into Creation.
The Creation side of this relationship is represented by an intricate geometric pattern which covers most of the background space. This pattern consists primarily of triangles which radiate outward from the center point of intersection between Creator and Creation, forming an infinitely repeating pattern across the entire background space. Within this pattern there are many shapes formed by intersecting triangles; some appear to