Born Michael Patterson in 1956, Rex Ray took his name from a Rexall Drugs appliance in the 1970s, and it has stuck. A logo design by that company grabbed his attention and became his new moniker while making mail art in the 1970s.
This retro futurism is a good jumping off point in reference to his work. It separates him from other artists doing large scale design-based art, such as Lari Pittman, whose work is narrative in form, or Fred Tomaselli, who explores psychedelic experience. Mr. Ray's fine art work comes directly out of his experience as a designer, and functions in a similar fashion, albeit as unique handmade eye candy on a large scale.
Rex Ray, installation view at Turner Carroll
After moving to the West Coast in 1981, briefly living out of his car, and enrolling at the San Francisco Art Institute, Ray's caught the eye of David Bowie, who hired him for web design and album cover art projects.
This led to a burgeoning design career, with big name corporate and music acts signing him on for work. After a day's labor at the design studio, Ray would go home and make small collages late into the night, just for himself. His break into the fine art world came when a curator from the Yerba Buena Art Center saw his collages pinned to the wall in the background of a magazine photo spread, and invited him to an influential group show, Bay Area Now 2, in 1999.
Acomycular collage and mixed media on linen, 76 x 76 in.
Ray's current output has evolved well beyond the small paper collages, into large scale, layered cut and printed paper on stretched linen pieces. At Turner Carroll, five of these new works are on display.
Ascomycular, a circular spoked design on square canvas, is the most symmetrical of the grouping. Evoking pinwheels and stained glass windows, this piece consists of richly complex layers radiating outward from a central axis. A cyan background moves forward into interlaced purple/maroon spokes, which rest just beneath a peach vaselike gradient with lime green blossoms.
Alectoria collage and mixed media on linen, 76 x 60 in.
Looking more closely, finely flecked elements of color coax out a fascinating aspect of this work. Flying in the face of today's digital aesthetic, Ray's work is made by hand. The paper that he hand cuts by scissor, has also been hand-printed in nuanced color gradations.
Alectoria consists of a criss-crossed deep space, squeegeed in vermillion. It is here that his more typical assymetrical design comes into play. Atop the background lies a clumped grouping of bulbous lamp forms, emitting elliptical multicolor flames. Phosphene haloes burst out of the larger flames, in contraposto.
Psoromasyl collage and mixed media on linen, 76 x 76 in.
Psoromasyl continues the vase motif, with eccentric floral blossoms sprouting atop antenna-like shafts. This lamplike arrangement glows over a burnt orange background, emitting warm pulses of light. An atomic pinwheel and phosphene discs reinforce this sense of space age radiant energy.
The most subdued work in the show, Amandinia, effectively utilizes chiaroscuro in its yellow and lilac pinwheels over a mudlike printed surface. Strangely enough, this piece evokes the age of western expansion, with its predominant mill wheel form and subtle wood pattern printing. Delicate beadwork completes the motif by connecting the spokes on each pinwheel.
Amandinia collage and mixed media on linen, 76 x 76 in.
Geometric complexity is perhaps the main feature of Ray's work, which in its cleanliness, calls to mind the retro futurism of space age design. His use of color is wildly varied, such that a single color rarely predominates. However, each work is color saturated and luminous, and tends toward the warm end of the spectrum. It is this radiant use of color and shape that give his work an energetic sense of radiance and vitality.
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