Luminary: Alex Grey
Alex spent five years at Harvard Medical School working in the Anatomy department. He also worked at Harvard's department of Mind/Body Medicine with Dr. Herbert Benson and Dr. Joan Borysenko conducting scientific experiments to investigate subtle healing energies. Alex's anatomical training prepared him for painting the Sacred Mirrors and for doing medical illustration.
Grey was an instructor in Artistic Anatomy and Figure Sculpture for ten years at New York University, and now teaches courses in Visionary Art with Allyson at The Open Center in New York City, Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado and Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York.
In 1972 Grey began a series of art actions which bear resemblance to rites of passage, in that they present stages of a developing psyche. The approximately fifty performance rites, conducted over the last twenty five years move through transformations from an egocentric to more sociocentric and increasingly worldcentric and theocentric identity.
Grey's unique series of 21 life-sized paintings, 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 he developed his 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, he applied this multidimensional perspective to such archetypal human experiences as praying, meditation, dying, kissing, copulating, pregnancy, birth and nursing.
Alex Grey's written work and audio recordings include Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey; The Mission of Art; Transfigurations; Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics and The Visionary Artist.
Alex Grey on Art As a Spiritual Practice
