Psychedelic art
also: Psychedelia
Psychedelic art is visual work inspired by the hallucinatory, consciousness-expanding experiences associated with drugs such as LSD, psilocybin and DMT. The term was coined by the British psychologist Humphry Osmond in the 1950s, but the art movement proper belongs to the late-1960s and early-1970s counterculture, above all in San Francisco, where concert posters for the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms turned lettering into melting, pulsating color. It was the visual counterpart of psychedelic rock: distorted, surreal imagery, full-spectrum color and swirling optical patterns meant to evoke or enhance the trip. Beyond posters it took in album covers, liquid light shows, murals, underground comics and newspapers, often carrying the counterculture's political and spiritual charge, and it has been periodically revived ever since.
Defining characteristics
- Full-spectrum, vibrating color and intense complementary contrasts
- Lettering that swells, curls and melts until text and image become one pattern
- Kaleidoscopic, swirling symmetry and optical afterimage effects
- Surreal, distorted imagery drawn from hallucination and visionary experience
- Dense compositions filling every edge, with hidden detail rewarding close viewing
Key figures
- Rick Griffin (1944-1991) — San Francisco poster artist whose Flying Eyeball poster became an icon of the style
- Victor Moscoso (b. 1936) — Spanish-American poster artist who pioneered vibrating color-contrast effects
- Wes Wilson (1937-2020) — Designer of the archetypal melting-letter psychedelic concert posters
- Alex Grey (b. 1953) — Visionary painter who carried psychedelic art into the fine-art world
Example works
- Skeleton and Roses (Grateful Dead poster) — Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley (1966)
- Flying Eyeball — Rick Griffin (1968)
Sources
- Psychedelic art - Wikipedia encyclopedia