Alex Grey, 1953 | Visionary artist

Alex Grey was born in Columbus, Ohio as Alex Velzy.

He was the middle child of Walt and Jane Velzy.

His father was a graphic designer who encouraged Alex’s art making.

Elementary school teachers recognized and supported his devotion to drawing.

As a boy, Alex collected insects and dead animals from his neighborhood and buried them in the backyard.

At age ten, he picked up what he thought was a dead bird and was bitten by a rabid bat, the cure required 21 painful shots.

Themes of mortality weave throughout Alex’s artwork, from his earliest skeleton drawings to later performances, paintings and sculpture.

In 1966, when Alex was 12, his science project was about LSD, focusing on the mind-expanding ideas of Timothy Leary.

At age seventeen, Alex won the national Seventeen Magazine Illustration Competition (1971).

Also that year, Alex was granted a full scholarship to Columbus College of Art and Design, which he attended from 1971-3.

A haunting dream image caused a radical change in the artist’s appearance that year. In the dream, Alex opened a trashcan lid and saw himself staring up from inside the can, his head half shaved bald, the other half long.

Alex decided to focus on polarities in his work so he maintained a half-shaved head for half a year.

Several of his performance pieces that year featured this self-presentation. Taking the theme of polarities further, Alex journeyed to the arctic North Magnetic Pole to explore the phenomenon of "Polar Wandering".

Returning to the Museum School at years end, having spent all his money, and broken up with his long-term girlfriend, the future was uncertain and the artist was despondent.

He asked God to show him a sign that he should go on living.

Career

From 1975-80, Alex worked in the Anatomy Department at Harvard Medical School.

There, he created exhibits for the Anatomical Museum and prepared cadavers for dissection by medical students.

He also spent many hours in the Psychedelic and Paranormal aisles of the medical library.

In 1980, Alex worked in the department of Mind/Body Medicine as a research assistant on an experiment investigating subtle energy healing.

During his work at Harvard Alex was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism and had the good fortune to sit with His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche and to study with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on his first visit to the U.S. Alex’s anatomical training and consciousness studies prepared him to paint the Sacred Mirrors, inspired by the performance entitled, "Life Energy".

Grey’s work was celebrated in a mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, 1999.

Deepak Chopra spoke at the opening and Grey premiered the first animated view of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors.

Although the show was popular and well attended Grey received a dismissive attack from LA Times art critic Leah Ollman.

Grey defended his work in a published letter to the editor, that accused the critic of "soulphobia".

Alex's art has been featured in numerous year-long exhibitions at American Visionary Art Museum, (AVAM, Baltimore, Maryland).

AVAM’s annual thematic exhibitions focused on self-taught, Art Brut, folk, insane and outsider artists.

Grey's art has appeared at the Outsider Art Fair in NYC and been featured numerous times in Raw Vision Magazine.

Since 2011, Alex Grey has been counted in the Watkins Review "Top 100 Living Spiritual Leaders".

At a NYC ceremony, Temple of Understanding in New York City awarded and honored both Alex Grey and Allyson Grey as two of the world's "Top Fifty Interfaith Leaders".

Alex Grey (Columbus, 29 novembre 1953) è un artista Statunitense, specializzato in arte psichedelica (Visionary art) e spesso associato al movimento New Age.

Praticante di Vajrayana, egli è membro dell'Integral Institute, consigliere presso il Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics ed il Wisdom University's Sacred Art Department.

Pittore, scultore, performer, creatore di opere multimediali ed installazioni, è divenuto famoso in ambito commerciale grazie alle collaborazioni con il gruppo alternative/metal californiano Tool ed a band quali SCI, Beastie Boys e Nirvana.

Insieme alla moglie Allyson è fondatore del CoSM (Chapel of Sacred Mirrors), un'istituzione no-profit a supporto della Visionary Culture.

Figlio di un graphic designer che incoraggia la sua abilità nel disegno, Alex frequenta il Columbus College for Art and Design (1971-1973) che poi abbandona per dedicare l'anno successivo alla realizzazione di tabelloni pubblicitari.

A partire dal 1972 Alex Grey dà inizio ad una serie di circa cinquanta performance condotte nel corso degli ultimi trent'anni attraverso diverse fasi del proprio sviluppo psicologico.

In tali art actions, di cui la più recente è "WorldSpirit" (un'interazione di voce e musica realizzata con Kenji Williams nel 2004) Grey intende mostrarci la propria versione di un ipotetico "rito di passaggio", ispirandosi ad antiche culture sciamaniche.

Frequenta dal 1973 al 1974 la Boston Museum School, per studiare con l'artista Jay Jaroslav.

Qui incontra la sua futura moglie, l'artista Allyson Rymland Grey, con la quale sperimenterà gli effetti allucinogeni dell'LSD.

Alcuni anni dopo, in un'intervista a Ken Wilber per Integral Naked, egli racconterà come le allucinazioni dell'acido lo abbiano influenzato e spinto verso la pratica spirituale.

Alex passa cinque anni lavorando presso il Dipartimento di Anatomia della Harvard Medical School, preparando cadaveri per la dissezione, e presso l'Harvard's Department of Mind/Body assistendo il Dr. Herbert Benson ed il Dr. Joan Borysenko nei loro esperimenti sulle energie curative.

Grey approfondisce così la propria conoscenza del corpo umano e si prepara alla realizzazione di "Sacred Mirrors" e di una serie di tavole anatomiche.

Per dieci anni insegna Anatomia Artistica e Scultura Figurativa alla New York University.

Tiene tuttora corsi di Visionary Art insieme alla moglie Allyson presso l'Open center e l'Omega Institute di Rhinebek (New York), il Naropa Institute di Boulder (Colorado), il California Institute of Integral Studies (California).

Vive attualmente a New York insieme alla moglie e alla figlia Zena Grey, attrice.