Alex Grey (born November 29, 1953) is an American visual artist, author, teacher, and Vajrayana practitioner known for creating spiritual and psychedelic artwork such as his 21-painting Sacred Mirrors series. He works in multiple forms including performance art, process art, installation art, sculpture, visionary art, and painting. He is also on the board of advisors for the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and is the Chair of Wisdom University's Sacred Art Department. He and his wife Allyson Grey are the co-founders of The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), a non-profit organization in Wappingers Falls, New York.
Early life and education
Grey was born Alexander Velzy on November 29, 1953, in Columbus, Ohio. His father was a graphic designer and artist. He attended the Columbus College of Art and Design for two years before dropping out. Grey went on to study art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Boston in 1975. At the end of art school, Grey met his wife Allyson at a party where they both ingested LSD and later bonded over the experience.
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". That same year, Grey was noticed by guitarist Adam Jones of the rock band Tool, who later featured his artwork on their albums Lateralus, 10,000 Days, and The String Cheese Incident. Newsweek magazine and the Discovery Channel have featured his artwork. His images have been printed onto sheets of blotter acid and have been used on flyers to promote Rave events.
Since 2020, the Greys have hosted a podcast about religion, science, visionary art, nature, meditations, and full-moon ceremonies. The pair has interviewed artists, philosophers, YouTubers, musicians, and PhD candidates.
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors
thumb|Inside the [[The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors|Chapel of Sacred Mirrors]]
Grey founded the Foundation for Sacred Mirrors, a 501(c)(3) organization, as a place to permanently display the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Additionally, he created the Church of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM).
The CoSM provides a space for meditation and worship; visitors can also admire Grey's artwork and writings, as well as works by invited artists. According to the 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 explore 40 acres featuring art by Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, and Amy Senn, among others. Murals by Grey and others are in the cafeteria. The property also includes a 10-bedroom Victorian guest house decorated with visionary art. Much of Grey's work is displayed in Entheon, a converted carriage house, which the Greys are fundraising to complete. Visitors enter through bronze doors inscribed with "Creating a Better World" by Grey. 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.
Grey's project the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors 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. Many of his paintings include detailed representations of the skeleton, nervous system, cardiovascular system, and lymphatic system. Grey applies this multidimensional perspective to paint the universal human experience. His figures are shown in positions such as praying, meditating, kissing, copulating, pregnancy, birth, and death.
Grey's work incorporates many religious symbols, including auras, chakras, and icons with geometric shapes and tessellations in natural, industrial, and multicultural situations. Grey's paintings are permeated by an intense, subtle light.
"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".
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."
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.
Grey's The Mission of Art, a philosophy of art, The book traces the evolution of human consciousness through art history, explores the role of an artist's intention and conscience, and reflects on the creative process as a spiritual path. He promotes the mystical potential of art and argues that the process of artistic creation plays an important role in the enlightenment of both the artist and the broader culture.
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.
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).
Alex Grey has published a 10-volume journal featuring his own artistic works and those of other visionary thinkers and philosophers.
Film
As an advocate for sacred art, Grey was the subject of the 2004 documentary ARTmind: the healing potential of sacred art.
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.
Grey appeared in the 2006 film Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within, a documentary about rediscovering an enchanted cosmos in the modern world.
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.
Grey appeared in the 2016 documentary film Going Furthur.
Personal life
In 2008, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Grey lived in New York City with his wife, painter Allyson Grey. They have one daughter, Zena Grey. This was part of his controversial performance art piece Necrophilia and was photographed by his wife Allyson Grey. There were also attempts to have him legally prosecuted.
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.
Grey has been on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast several times, including in 2012, 2013, and 2016.
Publications
- 1990: Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey, Inner Traditions - Bear & Company,
- 1998: The Mission of Art, Shambhala Publications Inc.,
- 2001: Transfigurations, Inner Traditions - Bear & Company,
- 2007: CoSM, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (Alex Grey & Allyson Grey), CoSM Press,
- 2008: Art Psalms, North Atlantic Books,
- 2012: Net of Being (Alex Grey & Allyson Grey), Inner Traditions - Bear & Company,
- 2015: Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics, (Ed. Allan Badiner, Alex Grey), Synergetic Press,