contact info

VISITORS: Tours of the studio are always available. Text or message if you'd like to see what was LITERALLY created from the ashes of Hurricane Ida.

(These updates are posted daily)

Contact Information

Grey Cross Studios
1920 4th St, New Orleans , LA 70113
Email: gcsartno@aol.com
Send text messages to 504-874-2908, Instagram @GreyCrossStudios, Facebook Grey Anatoli Cross, Threads @greycrossstudios

Sunday, October 6, 2024

THE ARTISTS ASYLUM

 This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 



I reach inside myself, and I find nothing.

These four walls they are my life and they are my world.

They shift with an imagination which I’ve lost.

They ooze color, revealing to me the secrets of a universe I’ve lost. 

Einstein writes E=MC* with a crayon and the wall collapses into a thousand tiny worlds.

I reach out for answers, and I find nothing. 


THIS IS HELL

  This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 



This is Hell. 

It is not pretty. It is not ugly. 

It is overwhelming, to the senses, to the mind, to the body. 

It is not Christian or Satanic. It does meet your stereotype.

It is pure confusion. It Is maelstrom. It is loneliness. It is everything you hate

It is nothing. It is everything. It is


TIME TO SAY GOODBYE

  This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


In your heart I will remain

In your grief I will cry with you 

In your loss I will whisper to you

In your passion I will make you swoon

In your sighs I will hold your hand

You may not see me. 

You may not understand now

But I am always there


VOYEUR FROM THE AFTERLIFE

  This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


It was always watching. 

Eyes on them both, gazing avidly. 

Drooling with atavistic glee which only creatures who had survived millennia could really understand.

 It had lost the ability to understand the coursing sensations within them both, but it could taste the extreme passion and animal agonies they both radiated. 

And when they slept he would remain, replaying the coupling like a piece of candy, savoring its sweetness until it melted away leaving not but empty bitterness in its passing. 

A MURDER IN RED ROCK CANYON

  This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 



The neck as red as the rocks.

The body, a husk as dry as the desert.

The spirit fled with the canyon winds.

The tears long since dried in the sands.

And I am left alone to mourn and regret.


IF I ONLY HAD A HEART, A SOUL, THE NERVE

  This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 



If I only had a heart, a soul, the nerve. 

I’d waste them all thinking I was something great. 

I’d lose my humility. 

I’d expect the world to love me. 

I’d never be afraid to force my opinions on others and imprison those who did not accept them. 

I’d call myself christ, rasputin, trump and I would be a god. 

DARK ECSTASY

  This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 



I speak of “dark ecstasy” as if it were alive.
It stands before me, forcing me down into oblivion while it seizes my soul and squeezes, until I am left gasping for breath.
Its passion is deadly.
It holds an invisible knife to my throat.
I feel the blade cut, the blood spill.
And I am left a hollow shell as it walks away from my dying form.


YOU WATCH ME LIKE AN INSECT. YOU DISSECT ME LIKE A CORPSE

 This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 



You watch me like an insect. 

You dissect me like a corpse. 

You overwhelm me with your stench until all I wish it to spew your essence from my soul. 

Yet I have no color without you. 

No depth.

No clarity.

No desire. 

You are the artist, and I am a broken brush waiting for intensity in a pale washed out world.

WE WHISPER IN THE EARS OF DEMONS TO COME PLAY WITH US IN THE ARENA OF THE ABSURD

 This is a series composed of deep storytelling art. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. These are micro-poetry, meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


We in misery find our entertainments in a cornucopia of lust and pain.

We commend our souls to the gods of blood sport and dark passion. 

We whisper in the ears of demons to come play with us in the arena of the absurd

We are never sated in this mad carnival. We were dead before we began. 


Wednesday, October 2, 2024

SOMETIMES ART HAS A DESTINY


I recently brought a piece of art with me to a show. My plans were to use it as an auction piece, $1 a ticket. We'd draw a ticket and give it away at the end of the 4 days show.

Now this piece of art had a bit of a history. The original art was actually a body painting I did with a solitary model on New Years eve 2023. It was a tremendous session and the model came away from it becoming a dear friend a helper on various projects I've done since.

The name "Mona Lisa Et Universum" was given because the piece reminded me of the Mona Lisa for some reason.

In the spring I began to work on the various art that would go with me to the summer show in Providence. I wanted to use several of the pieces from earlier body painting sessions, and I chose the Mona Lisa piece to base a 3 dimensional painting on.

What came of it was called "A Banshee Crying in the Infinite Void" and she was the antithesis of the Mona Lisa piece.

The two pieces couldn't have been any more different from each other.

So August came and the Banshee was packed up and headed to show with us! I had her displayed prominently on an easel with a sign for the raffle.

Thursday came and went with only a single raffle ticket sold. We changed positions for the next day. Yet not a single ticket sold.

Saturday came and by midday I could see that it was just bombing.

I made a decision that I was just going to call the single ticket holder and give it to them that day if they still wanted it. No more than a half hour later the ticket holder passed the table and I grabbed them out of the crowd by the hand. I was so happy to see them. When I got them to the side, I stopped and looked at them closely. Suddenly everything rushed into perspective. They were transgender. I hadn't noticed before. So I took them by both hands and said "I have a story for you".

I told them about the model who had posed for the piece and what a dear friend they'd become and still were. And most important, that the model was also transgender. I explained to them that sometimes art had a destiny, and that it was their destiny to own this piece.

Needless to say, there were tears and they walked away with the art shaking their head.

And I knew that yet again, art sometimes chooses where it wants to go and nothing we say about it will stop it from going to the right hands.

And most important, that it IS NOT always about an exchange of money or charging a fee of any kind. Art sometimes has a destiny and we should always remember that.

Friday, September 13, 2024

GUSTAV KLIMT AND THE PATRON SAINT




Last year I had a very strange dream. I was in a big art show with different hallways. I kept running around asking if anyone knew where Gustav was. I had to speak to Gustav. Mind you, at the time I had no idea who Gustav was. I just knew I had to find him before the show started. I eventually did find him across a large room. He was surrounded by others who wouldn't let me through to him. But he made eye contact with me.

And the eyes said patience. I took a deep breath in the dream and walked back to my own area.

So I woke and thought nothing else of the dream. Again I had no idea who Gustav was. This was a crazy time. I had 8 creatives here from out of state and was hosting them in the studio. While at the same time I was working on developing work based on Cubism. I was trying to understand it better. I had no idea I was on the edge of a major change as an artist.

So a few days later I had another dream. It was the same man I saw in the previous dream. He said three words to me. "Just Let Go". I woke in a cold sweat. Whoever this was, I'd better listen even though I was not sure what it meant.

So I continued my experiments in Cubism and hosted my visitors. I'd gotten a bit obsessive about the cubist idea and I pushed myself to create a whole series of cubist pieces. There was something here, I just couldn't see it yet.

Then suddenly something changed. Between 2 pieces, I could sense that the second piece was somehow different. Then I remembered the words "Just Let Go" and I recognized the change. For this piece I'd forgotten everything I knew and had just let the piece flow organically. It was more colorful, had more depth. It went places the previous pieces hadn't gone. I describe it as "through the looking glass". I was on the opposite side looking out of the glass.

I'd let go.

And that was when I saw the book in my storage area. A book about Egon Schiele the Austrian born artist. The page was opened to a photo of two men, one Schiele and the other another artist named Gustav Klimt. And I recognized Klimt. I got a shiver. This was the same man from the dreams. This was my Gustav!
ok...ok...what did this mean? Same day I discovered how to let go I also discovered the identity of the man who told it to me.

I needed to move and move fast before the knowledge in my head disappeared. So I went into the studio, tore down what I was doing and created a whole new set. I then organized a body painting session with 3 of my best models and I set to work to create...create what exactly? It wasn't cubism anymore. What the hell was this? Leaving it nameless I did the first in 12 shoots.

I could see immediately that my work was different because it was almost dreamlike. I described it first as seeing the subject through fractured glass. It was tumultuous. And so Tumultuism as an art form was born. Over 12 shoots, I refined the style and worked it carefully into a complete definition of what Tumultuism was. What defined it different from other concepts.

Now a year later, I claim Gustav Klimt as not only my inspiration, but if you look at his work, you realize that odd fractured quality was something he started. I'd like to think he realized he hadn't finished what he started so he passed it on to me. But whatever it is, I feel now like I have a guardian angel, or a patron saint watching out for me.

It changed everything and it will continue to do so. The concept is not static. Its meant to change over time.

Thank you Gustav.

Thursday, June 6, 2024

Tumultuous Death

 Tumultuous Art (Tumultuism) - A theory of art which is disorderly, fractured and dreamlike in its presentation. It may exhibit a confused state, akin to looking through a piece of fractured glass at the subject of the art, similar to an acid trip or lucid dreaming. The subjects are often out of focus. It sometimes exhibits a similarity to cubist art, but is not always about strait lines to view and interpret the subject through. The form is determined by the Abstraction Point. This is the point where the subject goes from a recognizable state to a state of total anarchy and abstraction. This is also part of the attraction of Tumultuous art because viewing close up to the image it breaks apart into an abstraction. The further back you step the more the subject of the art jumps out. The concept also utilizes the artists theories in "harmonic Dissonance". Where many layers signifying different levels of color, texture and design are brought together in harmony. Tumultuism may also include strictly monochromatic art where color is totally removed from the equation. 








Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Tumultuous Insanity

  Each of us defines insanity in a different way. It may be a psychological definition, extreme drug use, or just bizarre manifestation that occurs when a person goes over the edge. But we know it when we encounter it. We can see it in the faces and it can be chilling and even life changing when we encounter it.  

Tumultuous Art (Tumultuism) - A theory of art which is disorderly, fractured and dreamlike in its presentation. It may exhibit a confused state, akin to looking through a piece of fractured glass at the subject of the art, similar to an acid trip or lucid dreaming. The subjects are often out of focus. It sometimes exhibits a similarity to cubist art, but is not always about strait lines to view and interpret the subject through. The form is determined by the Abstraction Point. This is the point where the subject goes from a recognizable state to a state of total anarchy and abstraction. This is also part of the attraction of Tumultuous art because viewing close up to the image it breaks apart into an abstraction. The further back you step the more the subject of the art jumps out. The concept also utilizes the artists theories in "harmonic Dissonance". Where many layers signifying different levels of color, texture and design are brought together in harmony. Tumultuism may also include strictly monochromatic art where color is totally removed from the equation. 






















Sunday, May 19, 2024

Tumultuous Beasts

  Tumultuous Art (Tumultuism) - A theory of art which is disorderly, fractured and dreamlike in its presentation. It may exhibit a confused state, akin to looking through a piece of fractured glass at the subject of the art, similar to an acid trip or lucid dreaming. The subjects are often out of focus. It sometimes exhibits a similarity to cubist art, but is not always about strait lines to view and interpret the subject through. The form is determined by the Abstraction Point. This is the point where the subject goes from a recognizable state to a state of total anarchy and abstraction. This is also part of the attraction of Tumultuous art because viewing close up to the image it breaks apart into an abstraction. The further back you step the more the subject of the art jumps out. The concept also utilizes the artists theories in "harmonic Dissonance". Where many layers signifying different levels of color, texture and design are brought together in harmony. Tumultuism may also include strictly monochromatic art where color is totally removed from the equation.