Alex Grey
Alex Grey | |
---|---|
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors | |
Movement | Visionary art, Psychedelic art |
Spouse | Allyson Grey |
Website | www |
Alex Grey (born November 29, 1953) is an American visual artist, author, teacher, and
Early life and education
Grey was born on November 29, 1953, in
Career
Grey learned anatomy by working to prepare cadavers for dissection at Harvard Medical School's anatomy department, a position he held for five years.[7] He worked as a medical illustrator for approximately ten years in order to support his studio art practice.[3] Grey also taught anatomy and figure sculpture at New York University[7] for a period of ten years.[4]
Grey is best known for his psychedelic paintings and illustrations.[1] In 1986 Grey's artwork was exhibited at the New Museum in New York City.[1]
Alex and Allyson Grey have worked collaboratively and have openly supported the use of entheogens.[1]
Mending the Heart Net, an interactive installation artwork by Alex and Allyson Grey, was displayed at Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum in 1998–99 as part of the exhibition "Love: Error and Eros".[8]
In 1999, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego held a mid-career retrospective of Grey's work titled "Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey".[9] That same year, Grey was noticed by guitarist Adam Jones of the progressive metal band Tool, who later featured his artwork on their albums Lateralus and 10,000 Days.[7]
Illustrations created by Grey have been selected to appear on albums for musical groups such as the
Grey's artwork has been exhibited worldwide, including at
Grey has been a keynote speaker at conferences in Tokyo, Amsterdam, Basel, Barcelona and Manaus.[4] In the 2012 book Psychedelia, author Patrick Lundborg credits Grey as "the leading psychedelic artist of today, and also one of the foremost proponents of Visionary Art as a style."[13]
Since 2020, Alex Grey and Allyson Grey have created a podcast that features a variety of topics. Episodes include musings about religion, science, visionary art, nature, meditations, and full moon ceremonies. Mr. and Mrs. Grey have interviewed artists, philosophers, YouTubers, musicians, and PhD candidates.[14]
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors
Grey founded the Foundation for Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), a 501(c)3 as a place to permanently display the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Additionally, he created the Church of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM).
CoSM allows visitors a place of respite and worship while admiring Grey’s artwork and writings. Other invited artists can display their works at the CoSM. According to CoSM’s website, “The mission of CoSM is to build an enduring sanctuary of visionary art to inspire a global community.”
Located in Wappinger, New York, visitors can stroll the 40 acres while enjoying art by Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, and Amy Senn, to name a few. Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, and various other artists created murals that can be found in the cafeteria at CoSM. The property contains a 10 bedroom Victorian guest home that is decorated with art in the visionary style of Grey. A large amount of Grey’s work is displayed in Entheon, a converted carriage house on the property. The Greys are currently raising funds for the completion of Entheon. Visitors will enter through bronze doors (see below) that display “Creating a Better World” by Alex Grey.[15]
While in Entheon, visitors can also admire Grey’s works Kissing, Copulating, Pregnancy, Birth, Gaia, Net of Being (featured by the band Tool), and Nursing.” Viewers will also be able to enter the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors.
Grey's project The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM) first opened to the public in Chelsea, New York in 2004 and drew visionary and psychedelic art fans to the site for four years until its closure in December 2008.[1] The CoSM featured 20 life-size paintings of standing human figures Grey created in the early 1980s.[1]
The Greys reopened CoSM in Wappingers Falls, New York, a community within Hudson Valley.
Painting
Grey's paintings are a blend of
Grey's work incorporates many religious symbols, including
"It is the light that is sublime in Grey’s oeuvre - which is the most important innovation in religious light since the Baroque - and that makes the mundane beings in them seem sublime, in every realistic detail of their exquisite being".[16]
His highly detailed paintings are spiritual and scientific in equal measure, revealing his psychedelic, spiritual and super-natural view of the human species.[17]
In 2002, Holland Cotter, New York Times art critic wrote, "Alex Grey's art, with its New Age symbolism and medical-illustration finesse, might be described as psychedelic realism, a kind of clinical approach to cosmic consciousness. In it, the human figure is rendered transparently with X-ray or CAT-scan eyes, the way Aldous Huxley saw a leaf when he was on mescaline. Every bone, organ and vein is detailed in refulgent color; objects and space are knitted together in dense, decorative linear webs."[18]
Writing
In 1990 Grey published a large format art book, Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey. The book included essays on the significance of Grey's work by Ken Wilber, and by New York art critic, Carlo McCormick.[19]
Grey's The Mission of Art, a
In Transfigurations, published in 2001, Grey addresses his portrayals of light bodies, performance works, his collaborative relationship with Allyson Grey, and their quest to build a Chapel of Sacred Mirrors.[22]
Sounds True has released The Visionary Artist, a CD of Grey's reflections on art as a spiritual practice.
Grey co-edited the book, Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics (Chronicle Books, 2002, reprinted by Synergetic Press, 2015).[23]
Alex Grey has published a 10 volume journal that features his own artistic works and the works of other visionary thinkers and philosophers.
Film
As an advocate for
Grey and the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors gallery in New York City were featured in the 2006 documentary CoSM The Movie, directed by Nick Krasnic.[24]
Grey appeared in the 2006 film Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within, a documentary about rediscovering an enchanted cosmos in the modern world.[25]
He also appeared in the film DMT: The Spirit Molecule, in which he talked about the importance of the substance DMT in the past and present world, as well as describing some of his personal experiences with the substance and how it influenced his painting.[third-party source needed]
Grey appeared in the 2016 documentary film Going Furthur.[26]
Personal life
In 2008, the
In the media
The Viking Youth Power Hour interviewed Alex and Allyson Grey about the role of
In Variable Star, a 2006 science fiction novel written by Spider Robinson based on a story outline by Robert A. Heinlein, Robinson devotes several pages to his protagonist's discovery of Grey's Sacred Mirrors and Progress of the Soul series, and to using them to enhance meditation.[28][third-party source needed]
In 2013 Grey appeared on the podcast of Joe Rogan.[29]
Publications
- 1990: Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey, ISBN 0-89281-314-8
- 1998: The Mission of Art, ISBN 978-1570623967
- 2001: Transfigurations, Inner Traditions - Bear & Company, ISBN 0-89281-851-4
- 2007: CoSM, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (Alex Grey & Allyson Grey), CoSM Press, ISBN 978-160402-121-9
- 2008: Art Psalms, North Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-55643-756-4
- 2012: Net of Being (Alex Grey & Allyson Grey), Inner Traditions - Bear & Company, ISBN 978-1594773846
- 2015: Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics, (Ed. Allan Badiner, Alex Grey), Synergetic Press, ISBN 9780907791621
References
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
- ^ a b Zeiba, Drew (2018-06-13). "In upstate New York, an ecstasy-inspired psychedelic temple rises". The Architect’s Newspaper. Archived from the original on 2018-06-21. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
- ^ a b c d Lyttle, Thomas (November 29, 2002). "Interview With Alex Grey". High Times. Archived from the original on 2019-11-30. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
- ^ a b c d e Ernest, Nuala (August 4, 2013). "Alex Grey: Net of Being". Issuu. Raw Vission. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
- ^ a b Rogers, Clay Allen (2019-04-10). "Alex Grey: Art influenced by psychedelics". The Aggie. Archived from the original on 2019-04-11. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
- ^ a b c d David Ian Miller (March 24, 2008). "LSD Helped Forge Alex Grey's Spiritual, Artistic and Love Lives". San Francisco Chronicle "Finding My Religion" series.
- ^ a b c d Grosso, Chris (2019-02-12). "Visionary Art, Psychedelics, Tool: The Mystical Life of Alex and Allyson Grey". Revolver. Archived from the original on 2019-02-15. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
- ^ Remesch, Karin (May 17, 1998). "American Visionary Art Museum". Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
- ^ "The Artist as Visionary". Los Angeles Times. 1999-05-08. Archived from the original on 2021-01-22. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
- ^ "10 old school album cover artists, you should know about". Noizr. May 8, 2015. Archived from the original on 2020-08-09. Retrieved 2021-01-19.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-01-19.
- – via University of California Press.
- ^ Lundborg, Patrick, Psychedelia, An Ancient Culture, A Modern Way of Life, 2012, Lysergia, pg 421
- ^ "Podcast". CoSM, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Retrieved 2022-08-02.
- ^ "Entheon". CoSM, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Retrieved 2022-08-02.
- ^ )
- ^ Outsider Art Sourcebook Archived 2018-09-21 at the Wayback Machine, ed. John Maizels, Raw Vision, Watford, 2009, p.82
- ^ Cotter, Holland, The New York Times, Alex Grey Tibet House review, October 4, 2002
- ISBN 978-0-89281-314-8.
- ISBN 978-0-8348-4086-7.
- ^ "Reviews: The Mission of Art". Publishers Weekly. November 30, 1998. Archived from the original on 2021-01-22. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
- ISBN 978-1-59477-017-3.
- ^ Rico, Diana (2016-01-04). "A Book of Art and Essays Explores Psychedelics as a Spiritual Technology". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
- ISBN 978-0-7670-9192-3.
- OCLC 181630835. Archived from the originalon 11 November 2012. Retrieved 19 November 2012.
- ^ "Go Furthur at CoSM | Blog | Alex Grey". www.alexgrey.com. Archived from the original on 2021-04-17. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- ^ "The Vikings Chat with Alex & Allyson Grey". Viking Youth Power Hour. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27.
- ISBN 0-7653-1312-X.
- ^ "#359 - Alex Grey". www.spotify.com.
Further reading
- Adams, Benjamin M. (December 10, 2023). "Profound Parallels: The psychedelic art of Allyson Grey explores timeless themes". High Times. Retrieved 2024-01-03.
- Eckstein, Noah (May 23, 2023). "A Sanctuary for Psychedelic Art Opens in the Hudson Valley". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-01-03.
- Ellis, Karen (Spring 1999). "Alex Grey's Body of Light". Raw Vision. No. 26. Archived from the original on 2012-11-20.
- Oroc, James (2018). The New Psychedelic Revolution: The Genesis of the Visionary Age. Inner Traditions/Bear. ISBN 978-1620556627.
- Rosenbaum, Cassady (June 30, 2023). "Pilgrims Are Flocking to This Psychedelic Temple". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2024-01-03.
- Sayej, Nadja (December 15, 2012). "Chapel of Sacred Mirrors: Cosmic Creativity, Entheogens, and Psilocybin with Allyson and Alex Grey". Vice. Retrieved 2024-01-03.
External links
- Official website
- Alex Grey at IMDb