My Favorite Artist, Alex Grey

I often talk about this artist a lot. He is my favorite because of his strange and beautiful quality of all of his pieces.




"Skeleton Garden"


This piece is beautiful. I am bias in the sense that blue and green are my two favorite colors, but this piece shows perfect harmony. The piece has great balance overall making sure not to over or under weigh one side. All of the eyes pointing towards the face in the center lets my eye travel through the work. I also like that the piece is not flat in the colors used; the artist did a great job of putting value into the piece without taking away from the surrealistic aspect of the piece.

I like the feelings and thoughts I get from this work. It has a very cinematic quality about the picture. The greenish glow in the figures eyes seem to be creating more green eyes around it.

"Ayahuasca Visitation"
 

This piece is so vibrant in colors and designs. My eye is constantly traveling across the page for something new to find in the piece. I love the use of white to draw attention to particular points in the painting. The colors seem to get cooler at the bottom and the shapes are not as sharp. At the top of the painting the shapes are sharp and jagged and the colors are bright. Separating these two sides of color and shape does a good job of not overwhelming the eye.

In case you have not seen the face in this painting, try looking again. I am so amazed at the talent showed in the use of value and individual shapes to create the essence of a human face. The aspect of the lingering human face makes my eyes and mind wandering more.

"Wonder"

This is my absolute favorite piece by Alex Grey. I have tried to recreate my own version of this painting through my eyes, but there is something about this work that is almost impossible to remaster. The contrasting colors in the human body with the cool blue background create a great focal point. The angelic designs in the background drifting are so beautiful and harmonize the whole painting. The moon off in the distance creates another focal point on the opposite side of the page to create good balance and let the eye travel through the whole painting.

This painting makes me think of myself. The title "wonder" for it is perfect because it is exactly what I think of when I look at this painting. I picture myself deep in thought while gazing up in the sky. The pulsing beads of color radiating from the moon make me think of each individual wonder that crosses my mind.