Psychedelic Art – Taking a Look at the Psychedelic Aesthetic in Art

Psychedelic art has gone through many changes through the years. Most people will associate the term with 1960s psychedelic art, with its swirling bright psychedelic colors and bubbly text fonts that seem to move on their own. Although the term “psychedelic” was only coined in the 1960s, there is evidence of psychedelic patterns in cave art around the world, from Africa to America. In this article, we will explore this trippy art movement, from the first psychedelic drawings produced in the caves of our ancient ancestors to modern examples such as Alex Grey’s art – one of the most well-known contemporary visionary psychedelic artists.

The Trippy Art of Psychedelic Illustration

What comes to mind when you think of psychedelic art? Most of us will immediately see a 1960s psychedelic art poster for a concert or a band. The colors are usually bold and oversaturated and there are no straight edges. This eye-catching psychedelic aesthetic has since seeped into every aspect of our society at one point or another – from pop culture to corporate advertising, album covers, fashion, and home decor. What inspired the psychedelic artists though, and where did it all begin?

Well, the story of psychedelic illustration might be much older than you think – in fact, there are some historians that believe psychedelic drawings may be the oldest human visual art form.

The History of Psychedelic Art

The term, which originated in the 1960s, means “manifestation of the mind” and is usually associated with the images and sensations experienced when a person is in an altered state of consciousness. Throughout human history, this state has been reached through various ritualistic methods including repetitive dance, breathing techniques, and the ingestion of hallucinogens or “psychedelics”.

The oldest humans on earth, the African bushmen, have partaken in the trance dance around their fires for centuries – reconnecting with the spirit of the earth and their ancestors.

The First Psychedelic Artists

Through a combination of these techniques, they would enter an altered state of consciousness, or spirit realm, where they would observe shifting psychedelic patterns behind their closed eyes, and even on the surfaces of objects when their eyes were open. These patterns are known as entoptic patterns, which in Greek means “comes from within”. These ancient psychedelic artists wanted to connect the spiritual and physical realms, so they recreated the patterns they had experienced in an altered state on the walls of the caves, thereby overlaying one reality over another.

Now new research has revealed that the American indigenous people also replicated their psychedelic visions on the walls of their caves.

This follows the excavation of a Californian site where a visual representation of the Datura flower was discovered on the cave walls, prompting further study. Traditionally, the Datura plant was used in ceremonial settings for its psychedelic properties. It was given to the adolescents of the tribe as part of their initiation into adulthood. Chewed substances containing Datura were also discovered next to the cave art paintings.

Cover of the San Francisco Oracle, Volume 1 No. 5, January 1967; Material from the S.F. ORACLE provided courtesy of the Estate of Allen Cohen and Regent Press, publishers of the SAN FRANCISCO ORACLE FACSIMILE EDITION (Digital Version) available at www.regentpress.net., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What made this discovery significant was that it drew a direct link between the early ritualistic use of psychedelics and cave art. While it had long been suspected that American cave art was influenced by these hallucinogenic experiences just as their African counterparts had been, a visual representation of the plant itself – and not just the psychedelic patterns experienced after ingesting the plant – went a long way to substantiate these theories. It indicates that the people of that culture venerated the plant, as it was found at a site that was used seasonally for gathering and hunting.

The ancient people did not have time for superfluous activities, and ceremonial dance, art, and ingestion of hallucinogens all served to unite and heal the tribe.

These discoveries give researchers even deeper insights into how the indigenous Americans lived from the prehistoric era through to the 1800s. It not only gives them a better understanding of what role psychedelic art played in ancient communities but also art’s part in a larger communal picture that involves an intricate relationship between the ancient people and their environment.

Psychedelic Artists in the 20th Century

We have certainly come a long way from the prehistoric psychedelic drawings to the digital psychedelic illustrations of the 21st century, but there were many smaller steps in between. Artists have always sought ways of freeing their minds and art of the constraints of the status quo, and history is full of stories about artists dabbling in opium and absinthe to explore their imaginations – such as the Romanticists.

Surrealism was another attempt to create trippy art based on the images derived from the subconscious.

However, when we talk about the psychedelic aesthetic, it would be silly not to point out the obvious timeframe that comes to mind: 1960s psychedelic art. The discovery of LSD by Albert Hoffman played a large part in shaping the 1960s subculture, as well as the artists of the period who felt like they had seemingly found an eternal fountain of creative inspiration. However, the connection between psychedelic art and drug use was not seen as positive by the rest of society by any stretch of the imagination, and it was denounced as the mere visual representation of a generation that had lost itself to substance abuse.

Peace Now, Peace Now, Peace Now poster print, created between 1965 and 1975; Gemini Enterprises, publisher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Aesthetically, the style was written off as garish and kitsch, except for a few more open-minded reviewers who were able to find elements of surrealism, Op-art, and Art Nouveau in the psychedelic aesthetic. Yet, the critics perhaps failed to understand the counterculture movement that was behind the trippy artwork – a generation of people who questioned the social and political values of the day and sought to move away from the restrictive society they lived in toward a more liberal and free way of living.

It was an era of protests and demonstrations and as the mainstream culture started to fall into collapse, a counterculture started to rise from its ashes.

Along with this change in perspective came new ideas, new clothes, new music, and new art. The last two mentioned – music and art – went hand in hand during this period, as psychedelic rock music became the dominant genre, and album cover art was almost as important as the music on the vinyl inside the sleeve.

Painting representing a mural artwork of famous seventies singers during winter; Alain Bertrand, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Psychedelic artists from this period such as Peter Max, Wes Wilson, and Victor Moscoso helped shape the aesthetic of the generation with their posters which featured psychedelic colors and fonts. Victor Moscoso introduced the vibrating psychedelic colors effect and Wes Wilson created the bubbly font that became synonymous with psychedelic posters. During the period in which 1960s psychedelic art arose, the two dominant styles were Pop art and Abstraction. Psychedelic art differed from both, as it did not celebrate consumerism like Pop art, and was more political and subjective than Abstraction.

Yet, by the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the psychedelic aesthetic had been adopted by mainstream culture, and hence, advertising companies realized psychedelic art’s marketing potential.

The counterculture was turned into the common culture, and the same psychedelic patterns that were once a symbol of anti-corporation ideals were now appropriated to sell those very products. The psychedelic illustrations and colors that were used as tools against the system were now weapons of the system, selling consumer goods with a psychedelic aesthetic and taming the rebellious value it had in the process.

Psychedelic Artists in the 21st Century

One of the reasons we view psychedelic art as corny and kitsch today is because most of what we see is the corporate version. However, there are still psychedelic artists producing art today that remains true to the original spirit and ethos of the psychedelic movement.

Many of them have modified and updated the style somewhat to better suit modern sensibilities and add their own distinct aesthetic to their works.

One such artist is Bruce Riley, known for his paint and resin psychedelic artworks, and another is Ryan McGinnes who has flipped the table by incorporating brand logos into his artworks, reversing the commercialization and exploitation of the psychedelic aesthetic that occurred in the late 60s.

The Brain (Stoned) (1982) by Hanno Karlhuber, from the series “Energy of Space”. The hovering person can be interpreted as being at the mercy, with the cosmic stones as obstacles. It is seen as a naturalistic description of mental states; Hanno Karlhuber, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Alex Grey’s art is another example of modern psychedelic art, and his visionary paintings of beings allow one to observe the flow of energy that occurs inside humans visually. Android Jones is another popular modern psychedelic artist who incorporates aspects of digital art into his visionary psychedelic illustrations.

Creating psychedelic art has become easier than ever thanks to advances in computer software.

This has led to a multitude of digital art formats such as collages, 3d renders, fractal imagery, and digital psychedelic art. Just as the 1960s psychedelic art emerged as a symbiotic byproduct of the music movement of the era, so did digital art emerge as a symbiotic byproduct of the 1990s rave era.

U.S. postage stamp featuring Peter Max’s artwork commemorating Expo 1974; USPS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The 1960s had their “happenings” and the modern rave is simply a contemporary manifestation of the same ancient ritual where music, art, lighting, and movement all aid in the synthesis of the senses, creating an altered state of consciousness where all physical objects are condensed to vibration – the perfect space for artistic inspiration! Much of the same ethos and psychedelic aesthetics have been borrowed from the 1960s.

Although the modern digital tools allow for much more complex arrangements, allowing artists to manipulate images, create layers, and add lighting effects, that would not have been possible in previous decades.

Important Psychedelic Artists

From cave wall dots and squiggles to computer-generated fractal landscapes, psychedelic art has come a long way. And while the tools have changed, the general principle has remained the same: to manifest the images that exist inside outwards. Let’s meet some of the most well-known psychedelic artists.

Victor Moscoso (1936 – Present)

Victor Moscoso, who was born in Spain, was the first of the music poster painters of the 1960s to have a proper academic background and experience. He relocated to San Francisco in 1959 after pursuing art at Yale University. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he later became a lecturer. Moscoso’s utilization of vibrant colors was inspired by artist Josef Albers, who was one of his Yale professors.

He was the very first of the music poster designers to employ photographic collage in his designs.

Moscoso rose to fame through his psychedelic posters for the clubs and dance halls of San Francisco. During the 1967 season known as the “Summer of Love”, his work started to receive international recognition due to his posters for the Avalon Ballroom event hosted by the collective known as the “Family Dog”. A year later he would gain further popularity as an artist for the underground comic publication Zap Comix.

He continues to produce art for posters and comics and he has also created album covers for artists such as Herbie Hancock, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, and David Grisman.

Wes Wilson (1937 – 2020)

Wes Wilson’s hobbies as a youngster ranged from creative pursuits to a deep admiration of the natural world. His post-secondary education echoed similar interests; he studied horticulture and forestry before settling on philosophy. By the late 1960s, Wes Wilson had gained great inspiration from San Francisco’s avant-garde districts, and he quickly found himself making fine art for the public. His Art Nouveau-inspired approach took what was known about commercial art and flipped it inside out.

The psychedelic poster was created when barely comprehensible lettering covered every available area, lines flowed into lines, and colors collided.

Wes Wilson’s creations beautifully depict his anti-cultural mentality, the booming drug society that many younger folks embraced during this period, and the developing hippie movement. We can notice a distinct inspiration of art nouveau poster style in Wes Wilson’s artworks, which represent the ideals of an earlier period with similarly avant-garde energy.

To the majority of people in the 1960s who were too young to know much about the history of his influences, his mixture of Art Nouveau and strange typography seemed fresh and innovative.

Peter Max (1937 – Present)

Max founded a graphic design company with partners in 1961 when he was just out of college. They achieved success almost instantly in the design sector. Max started to experiment with a more psychedelic and vibrant style during this period. He used advertising, posters, and graphic works to reflect his new, psychedelic aesthetic.

Companies all around the country wanted the aesthetic he created. Max’s style was sought after by agencies, journals, and national newspapers for a wide range of projects and contracts.

Photograph of artist Peter Max at the Larry King Cardiac charity event in 1998; Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Max suddenly found himself at the epicenter of a cultural movement, which was amplified by his distinct graphic style. His prints, as a renowned illustrator and artist, could be seen on the walls of student dorm rooms across the country. Swami Satchidananda introduced Max to yoga and a deeper awareness of Eastern philosophy in 1968. Inspired, Max persuaded the swami to stay with him in the U.S, assisting him in establishing the Integral Yoga Institute and disseminating yoga principles throughout the country.

Max closed his graphic studio for most of the 1970s. He disappeared for over 18 years to devote time to his family and focus on his new interest, painting.

He liked the flexibility of painting with brushes and canvases rather than printing presses. Park West Gallery has represented Max since the 1970s and is the artist’s biggest dealer worldwide. Despite his absence from the spotlight during this period, Max continued to develop his creative approach.

Allyson Grey (1952 – Present)

Allyson Grey has been part of the psychedelic movement for several decades. A prominent voice of the Visionary Art movement, she is also the co-founder of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors along with her husband Alex Grey. Her worldview was shaped by the works of Ram Dass and her psychedelic awakening that she experienced in the early 1970s. Her artwork is both a universal and personal meditation on enlightenment, life, and thought.

Much of her work incorporates a “secret language” of symbols, and she has created a 20-character alphabet with these symbols.

Alex Grey (1953 – Present)

Alex Grey is one of the pioneers of contemporary visionary art, and one of the world’s most prominent psychedelic artists. Grey’s art portrays his own psychedelic experiences in a manner that is vivid, complex, and divinely inspired. He is regarded as one of the few artists who can look beyond the veil of the physical realm and perceive the underlying energy that courses through every living being.

He is most well-known for his psychedelic illustrations which appear as if one is able to see through the skin of his subjects and see the layers of anatomy beneath.

In his art, one can make out the subject’s skeletal structure, muscle fibers, and veins, as well as the energy centers known as chakras which feature in Eastern spiritual systems. Grey’s work has not always been accepted by traditional art reviewers and galleries since it is based on “visions” he gets, frequently during meditation or psychedelic excursions. There was a time in modern art when everything related to the “spiritual world” was frowned upon. Individuals are now returning to that side that has always been there, understanding how much spirituality is inherent in the creation and enjoyment of art.

A portrait of the artist Alex Grey in front of his painting, Net of Being, in 2013; Alexgreycosm, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Grey’s artwork has garnered a following outside of the traditional art world. With its New Age iconography and medical-illustration precision, Alex Grey’s work may be defined as psychedelic realism, a type of clinical attitude to cosmic awareness. In 1979, he started work on the 21 works of art that comprised Sacred Mirrors which took 10 years to complete. Each layer featured a different set of bodily systems, such as a nervous system layer, a cardiovascular layer, a muscular layer, and an energetic layer. Viewers were welcomed to stand directly in front of each artwork as if it were a mirror of their bodies.

He released a book of the works in 1990 and the psychedelic community quickly realized that they recognized something of their own experiences within Grey’s works.

It is as if the artist had climbed inside one of their psychedelic visions and then created perfect depictions of their experiences. Alex Grey and his wife opened the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors as a place to permanently house and exhibit the paintings, as well as to function as a space for interfaith ceremonial gatherings on certain seasonal celebrations.

Android Jones (1977 – Present)

Jones, best defined as a “digital artist,” has produced a massive collection of work. He is well-known for his multilayered, psychedelic compositions and live performances with a custom-built digital setup. He was a member of the Grateful Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” tour, and his artwork has been displayed on the Empire State Building as well as the Sydney Opera House. Android has been a part of the Burning Man community for many years and has participated in events on six continents.

Altered states of consciousness and spirituality are central to Jones’ works.

Jones describes his artwork as Electro-Mineralism and links his capacity to produce to technological advancements. Android Jones depicts complicated themes by manipulating energy and light, using his formal art education. He is referred to as a digital alchemist since he is motivated to change the viewer’s perspective by pushing the frontiers of the mind through the usage of revolutionary media formats.

He once said that he had experienced things in this life that he couldn’t put into words. He has been to places inside where the limits of the mind were reached and the frightening beauty of eternity unfolded over and over again. If he could put into words exactly what inspires him to produce the art that he does, it would be pointless to do so; instead, he would have chosen the pen as his tool of expression.

He said that he doesn’t really know why he makes art, but it was exactly that mystery that he intended to pursue and that each artwork he produced brought him closer to finding the answer as to why he creates.

Tokio Aoyama (1981 – Present)

Tokio Aoyama, a modern-day Surrealist influenced by everybody from Salvador Dalí to Sun Ra, has developed a loyal fanbase thanks to his album sleeves for celebrities such as Georgia Anne Muldrow. Aoyama’s art exists beyond the boundaries of consciousness, where celestial vibrations and natural wonders elicit a kaleidoscope of psychedelic images.

While his vivid otherworldly work is influenced by psychedelic and surrealism, it also has roots in the old spiritual traditions of the East.

Looking to the past for guidance, Aoyama’s artworks incorporate the cut-and-paste aesthetic of the b-boys who have influenced him. And most of his work is inspired by black American music, from skateboard doodles of giants like Gil Scott Heron to a beautiful mural of De La Soul. Despite growing up in the country, his father and elder cousin listened to funk, jazz, and soul music. He also visited America when he was just ten years old, and much of what he witnessed influenced him.

His painting is influenced by urban American culture as well as Japanese culture.

He compares it to riding a Harley Davidson while dressed in a kimono. Music is a nig part of his creative process, and it gives him fresh ideas and inspiration. While creating the artwork for a specific artist’s album cover, he listens to their music and tries to recreate the images the sounds create in his mind.

Psychedelic art can be traced back to the dawn of time. Producing images that were inspired by altered states of consciousness has been a pastime of humans for millennia and we continue to do so today – although the tools have drastically changed over time. Whereas our ancestors paint psychedelic patterns such as entoptic dots and radiating spirals on the cave walls of the past, today psychedelic artists have access to software that allows them to create what is in their heads in a much more complex manner.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did Psychedelic Art First Emerge?

Some historians will point out that art inspired by altered states is almost as old as man himself. Through the centuries, there have been many artists that have indulged in hallucinogens to inspire their art. Yet, it was in the 1960s that the psychedelic aesthetic as we know it today first grew in popularity. This was thanks in large to the rise of the rock and hippie movements, as many of the first examples of the psychedelic style can be observed in the posters and cover art of bands and musical events in that era.

What Is Psychedelic Art?

While the term could refer to any art that has been inspired by hallucinogens or mind-altering substances, it mostly refers to 1960s psychedelic art. During this period, posters were vivid, and vibrant, with flowing curves and text fonts that seemed to breathe and move on their own. However, there is presently a new generation of visionary artists who have embraced digital art such as Android Jones, as well as traditional painting methods, such as Alex Jones, that continue to push the psychedelic visual envelope.

Jordan Anthony( Content Editor, Art Writer, Photographer )

Jordan Anthony is a Cape Town-based film photographer, curator, and arts writer. She holds a Bachelor of Art in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where she explored themes like healing, identity, dreams, and intuitive creation in her Contemporary art practice. Jordan has collaborated with various local art institutions, including the KZNSA Gallery in Durban, the Turbine Art Fair, and the Wits Art Museum. Her photography focuses on abstract color manipulations, portraiture, candid shots, and urban landscapes. She’s intrigued by philosophy, memory, and esotericism, drawing inspiration from Surrealism, Fluxus, and ancient civilizations, as well as childhood influences and found objects. Jordan is working for artfilemagazine since 2022 and writes blog posts about art history and photography.

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