Artist1: Alex Grey

For my first artist, it seems fitting to talk about Alex Grey. He's one of the few artists that I've closely followed since I got into visual art and design, and has exerted a huge amount of influence on my work and concepts.

I first saw his art on the cover of Tool's Lateralus album (left). The cover/booklet art drew me in and perfectly visualized the music, pushing the album to become an even more intense experience. The image is actually a combination of several images printing on clear plastic, allowing the viewer to sort of dissect the image. Dissection and analysis are major themes in my own art.

Grey is heavily influenced by traditional Eastern art and philosophy, specifically Hinduism and Buddhism, and practices Vajrayana. The figures in his pieces are often seen in meditative poses with the common flowing curves and arches of Hindu and Buddhist art traveling throughout the image and chakras placed on the body. He also incorporates anatomics in his art, pulling from his time working with cadavers at Harvard Medical School. Often, Grey depicts figures without skin, revealing musculature, bone and other anatomical structures, communicating his concept of the interplay between physical and spiritual existence.

Grey almost always focuses on human experience and perception in his work. His 21 piece series Progress of the Soul demonstrates in explicit and agonizing detail the the stages of he believes are the major steps a person (i.e. their soul, in this case) take as they are brought into being, experience and learn, and then pass from mortal human existence and how all of this fits into the universe.

Combining his many strong influences with occult, spiritual, and sometimes political themes along with psychedelic drugs, Grey creates intense and visceral art that envelopes the viewer in a colorful and bombastic environment while maintaining quiet introspection and observation as major themes.