Alex Grey

About me:

Visit Alex Grey's Website at

www.AlexGrey.com

I was an instructor in Artistic Anatomy and Figure Sculpture for ten years at New York University, and now I teach courses in Visionary Art with Allyson at The Open Center in New York City, Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, the California Institute of Integral Studies and Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. In 1972 I began a series of art actions that bear resemblance to rites of passage, in that they present stages of a developing psyche. The approximately fifty performance rites, conducted over the last thirty years move through transformations from an egocentric to more sociocentric and increasingly worldcentric and theocentric identity. The most recent performance was WorldSpirit, a spoken word and musical collaboration with Kenji Williams which was released in 2004 as a DVD My unique series of 21 life-sized paintings, the Sacred Mirrors, take the viewer on a journey toward their own divine nature by examining, in detail, the body, mind, and spirit. The Sacred Mirrors, present the physical and subtle anatomy of an individual in the context of cosmic, biological and technological evolution. Begun in 1979, the series took a period of ten years to complete. It was during this period that I developed this depictions of the human body that "x-ray" the multiple layers of reality, and reveal the interplay of anatomical and spiritual forces. After painting the Sacred Mirrors, I applied this multidimensional perspective to such archetypal human experiences as praying, meditation, kissing, copulating, pregnancy, birth, nursing and dying. My recent work has explored the subject of consciousness from the perspective of universal beings whose bodies are grids of fire, eyes and infinite galactic swirls. Renowned healers Olga Worral and Rosalyn Bruyere have expressed appreciation for the skillful portrayal of clairvoyant vision in my paintings of translucent glowing bodies. My paintings have been featured in venues as diverse as the album art of TOOL, SCI, the Beastie Boys and Nirvana, Newsweek magazine, the Discovery Channel, Rave flyers and sheets of blotter acid. My work has been exhibited worldwide, including Feature Inc., Tibet House, Stux Gallery, P.S. 1, The Outsider Art Fair and the New Museum in NYC, the Grand Palais in Paris, the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil. I have been a keynote speaker at conferences all over the world including Tokyo, Amsterdam, Basel, Barcelona and Manaus. The international psychedelic community has embraced myself as an important mapmaker and spokesman for the visionary realm, . A large installation called Heart Net by Myself and my wife, Allyson, was displayed at Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum in 1998-99. A mid-career retrospective of My work was exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego in 1999. The large format art book, Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of my work has been translated into five languages and has sold over one hundred thousand copies, unusual for an art book. My inspirational book, The Mission of Art, traces the evolution of human consciousness through art history, exploring the role of an artist's intention and conscience, and reflecting on the creative process as a spiritual path. Transfigurations is my second large format monograph containing over 300 color and black & white images of my work. Sounds True has released The Visionary Artist, a CD of my reflections on art as a spiritual practice. ARTmind is the artist's recent video exploring the healing potential of Sacred Art. I co-edited the book, Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics (Chronicle Books, 2002). In 2004 my VISIONS boxed set containing a portfolio of new works and a Sacred Mirrors and Transfigurations, my collected works. The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, CoSM, a long-term exhibition of fifty works of transformative art by myself has opened (Fall 2004) in New York City. He lives in New York City with my wife, the painter, Allyson Grey and our daughter, the actress, Zena Grey.