Alex Grey Research Paper

Alex Grey was born on November 29, 1953 in Columbus, Ohio to a middle class family eventually becoming one the world's greatest visionary artists of today. As a young kid he use to collect insects and dead animals and bury them in his backyard until he was bitten by a rabid bat. He had to endure a painful series of rabies antitoxin injections with a serum that was made of dead dried duck embryos which left a big lump under his skin. At age 10 he would watch his grandmother turn jaundice yellow and asked his dad when she would be getting better. He told him she wouldn't get better, and that she was dying. These things taught him something about death and how things don't last forever. This early brush with the non-living as well as with medicine warped his art subject matter and got him thinking what happens to us when we die and if we have a spirit where does it go.
His father being a graphic designer strongly encouraged his early drawing and guided his development until he became a rebellious teenager.
When he got older he attended the Columbus College of Art and Design for two years before he dropped out and started painting billboards. After a couple years of that he went to study with Jay Jaroslav at the Boston Museum School for a year. He then spent five years at Harvard's Anatomy department studying the body and preparing dead bodies for dissection. Working there provided him a key understanding of our iridescent, fibrous physical anatomy and unforgettable guarantee of death. Doing so prepared him for painting the Sacred Mirrors. Some of the doctors that saw the Sacred Mirrors recommended him to a large pharmaceutical company where he worked as a medical illustrator for 10
years. In 1975 after a journey to the north magnetic pole he attempted to psychologically connect with the geomagnetic field around the earth in search of god. The next day at a party he tripped on LSD for his first time with future wife, Allyson, experiencing many different visions changing the way he viewed life and the world forever. Together they would regularly trip exploring various spiritual paths. Throughout the 70's and 80's he did many performances and installations based on the visions he had. One of those performances was Life Energy. He also did various black and white drawings and life-sized nervous system charts. His wife noticed the popularity of the charts and suggested he develop that idea into paintings of the physical and metaphysical anatomy. Started in 1979 and finished in 1989 the Sacred Mirrors would be his biggest project yet. It consists of 19 life size paintings and 2 etched mirrors that examine the body, mind, and spirit of an individual in great detail. During this time he developed his interpretation of the human body that shows the multiple layers of reality, and exposes the relationship of anatomical and spiritual forces.
After the Sacred Mirrors he applied his new perspective to typical human experiences such as praying, meditation, kissing, birth, and death. Alex has also done artwork for some bands primarily Tool, which is how I saw his artwork and became interested in him. This includes the covers of In Utero by Nirvana, Lateralus by Tool, and 10,000 Days by Tool. He also does a lot of the visual art for the Tool concerts and contributes to their music videos. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and daughter and teaches 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.

all information found at www.alexgrey.com and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Grey