the alex grey thread

[Horuseus]

I am quite the fan of his stuff as my Avatar may imply. This is from one of his interviews;

Alex: Yes, my works are based on visions. Let's take a piece on view at Feature Inc., Transfiguration, here's what happened leading up to doing the painting. Early one morning I woke from a dream. In the dream I had been painting a piece called Transfiguration. The painting had a simple composition, two opposing spherical curves connected by a figure. Floating above the earth sphere, a human, which was fleshly at the feet became gradually more translucent. At about groin level it "popped" into a bright hallucinogenic crystal sphere. This inspiration provided by the dream, was underscored later that week when I smoked DMT. As I inhaled the immediately active and extremely potent psychedelic, I became the transfigured subject of my painting. In my vision, my feet were the foundation of the material world. As I inhaled, the material density of my body seemed to dissolve and I "popped" into the bright world of living geometry and infinite spirit. I noticed strange jewel-like chakra centers within my glowing wire-frame spirit body, and spectral colors which were absent from my dream painting. I was in my future painting and was being given an experience of the state in order to better "re-create" it.

(...)

Alex: I've always been obsessed with anatomy, I was drawing skeletons when I was five. In 1978 I had a vision that was a breakthrough for my work, I was standing in front of a full length mirror and saw through my skin and saw all the energy surrounding and interpenetrating my body, working through it like acupuncture meridians and chakras. It was a fusion of East and West, science and spirit that pointed out how my work could become more integral, by including dimensions of reality we know or feel exist, but don't commonly see.

http://www.alexgrey.com/interviews/feature02.html

Ted Talk by Grey;