Sacred Art: From Death to Healing
November 4th, 2009 by
Alisa Nizhniy
“For three hours Allyson and I lay motionless on the ground with our eyes closed. Red votive candles balanced on our chests. Surrounding us were hundreds of roses and two thousand apples arranged in the shape of a Christian cross. Candles illuminated the perimeter of the cross. Hanging directly above us was a rotting Angel of Death holding a neon infinity symbol. Gregorian chants were played for 3 hours as hundreds of people observed the performance installation.”
Living Cross, a performance piece by Alex Grey on October 15, 1983 Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago
“A tape of the deep chanting of Tibetan monks played loudly. My wife Allyson, her body coated with white greasepaint, walked slowly into the space carrying a candle. I followed behind her, my body coated with black greasepaint. As I sat motionless fixing my attention on a skeleton seated opposite me, Allyson lit 12 candles placed like watch numbers around the rim of the symbol. Then, she placed her candle in the center of the symbol and continued walking slowly around the rim. The chanting continued and the candles melted and went out, leaving only the central flame. Allyson and I met at the edge of the circle. A strobe light began flashing outside the circle. Standing under the light with horns and drums playing loudly, we frantically embraced and merged our pigments…”
Meditations on Mortality, a performance piece by Alex Grey on April 17, 1980 Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
Alex Grey, born in Columbus, Ohio on November 29, 1953
Alex Grey was attracted to energy embodied by death. In his childhood, he found insects and dead animals to bury in the backyard. After some art school hopping in his early twenties, he devoted five years to working at Harvard Medical School as an examiner, preparing cadavers for dissection in the Anatomy department, as well as conducting scientific experiments to investigate subtle healing energies in the department of Mind/Body Medicine.
Through continual experimentation with intimate, occasionally morbid, ritualistic performance art, which was driven by his agnostic-existentialist beliefs and accompanied by a series of “entheogenically-induced, mystical experiences,” Alex Grey gradually transformed into a radical transcendentalist. Accordingly, he also returned to painting as his principal medium of art. He explains, “The constant reinvention of art mirrors scientific invention in the twentieth century. As contemporary artists, we are inheritors of this tireless experimentalism. Yet I’ve come to see the search for new forms of “Art for art’s sake” as a shallow reason to perform and work... Nowadays, the artist has the widest range of possible modes of expression. Instead of tireless experimenting, I say, bring back the artist to what they are doing. Ask them: why are you making what you are making? What is the sense of it all?”
In his book, The Mission of Art, Grey writes, “Visionary art offers bizarre and unsettling insights, convincing us by its compelling internal truth.” Grey’s teachings suggest that through our inherent capacity for extrasensory information, we all have access to alternate dimensions. His most famous work, a series titled the Scared Mirrors, consists of 21 life-size paintings, which portray the human anatomy as transparent and multilayered, surrounded by various auras, which form flowing networks of incandescent energy, synthesizing biological, cosmic, and technological currents.
These days, the internationally recognized artist, author, and speaker travels to other worlds and brings back visions that heal. Alex Grey, the idealist, believes in the healing potential and trans-religious significance of Sacred Art. Prominent, clairvoyant healers respect Grey for the intricate, metaphysical observations that they find to be accurately portrayed in his artwork. People who have had near-death experiences also feel that Grey’s paintings closely resemble their own visions.
To find out more about Alex Grey, please visit: AlexGrey.com
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Begun in 1979, the series took a period of ten years to complete.
Alex Grey in the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, 2008.
Theologue, 1984
Citipati, October 2007, depicts the Tibetan skeleton dance of death.
Breaking Open the Head, February 2007, pays homage to Daniel Pinchbeck’s first book and depicts a skull breaking open, surrounded by multi-faith glyphs for God, symbolizing conscious expansion.
Images courtesy of AlexGrey.com and Librado Romero/NYTimes.com
