Alex Grey (interview excerpt)

SR:

You talk about art having the potential to
change humanity and our future. In what way do
you think visionary art is able to achieve this?

AG:

We often forget that what we know of
the world is entirely dependent on our view,
our vision of the world, which is possible to
evolve and transform into inspiring aliveness,
or to stagnate and atrophy into sinkholes of
cynicism. The news media and other corporate
sponsored culture have an agenda that we
unconsciously consume as we tune into their
worldview. The shrill lies that fuel corporate
advertising, like, “happiness and satisfaction
in life is dependent on the products we consume,”
ties us to a fear-based materialist and
greed-centered worldview. There is no true
spiritual liberation offered from the corporate
media that we consume on a daily basis. It’s
no wonder that anti-depressants are current
drugs of choice in our culture. Where do we
go for visions of freedom and reflections of our
highest possibilities as a species – not to CNN.
Today, I think visionary artworks can offer the
“still small voice” of conscience, that may help
people wake up from the mass media trance. It
takes an engaged individual, willing to think for
themselves and eager to enlarge their worldview,
to spend time contemplating visionary art
and embrace the divine imagination reflected
there, source of creative solutions for our current
growing problems. Visionary art can be
a sacred mirror introducing us to our own
untapped potentials, in this way it can catalyse
and validate people’s path to a sustainable and
saner future.

Published in Sub Rosa (Dec. 2005)
www.subrosa.dailygrail.com

Above image originally appeared in Alex Grey's Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey (Inner Traditions International: Rochester, Vermont).