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Rex Ray: Art + Design
BY
Chia Sihan
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Drawing from an art background, San Francisco artist Rex Ray portrays fine art sensibilities with design techniques using diverse platforms, ranging from David Bowie’s album covers to colorful large-scale canvas paintings and collages.
Title: Rex Ray: Art + Design
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Foreword: Douglas Coupland
Essay: Michael Paglia
Interview: Steven Skov Holt
It’s hard to find a piece of work by Rex Ray that’s not likeable. In this sense, this fine artist-designer has succeeded. In fact, the more one flips through his compendium of works—from mixed media collages on resin, paper, wood and linen to large scale canvas paintings—the general feeling is one of growing attraction. Just when you thought you’ve seen enough, a turn of the page reveals a fresh element that lets you see the artist in a different light.
That ability to eschew set boundaries and reinvent preconceptions is perhaps the ultimate key to Rex Ray’s staying power, whether it’s with long-time friend and collaborator David Bowie or in art circles throughout the United States. That, coupled with the single-minded purpose of creating beautiful images in a world where shock tactics can veer from bizarre to the outright abominable. It’s much harder to keep audiences excited when all that’s being presented is predominantly abstract expressionism.
It starts making sense when you trace his roots as a suburban kid growing up with the punk rock movement. It’s probably harder to believe that before these spontaneous bursts of colour, Rex Ray had a “black-out” of sorts during the Aids crisis as a student at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). Those free-form collages remain an indelible aspect of his current portfolio, revealing his determination to do something “juvenile, mindless, and rudimentarily creative” in defiance of his commercial popularity. The large-scale canvas, intimidating to any painter, became his personal fort from stagnancy.
This reluctance to conform to any particular genre is evident in this neatly categorized compendium of his best works thus far, from paper collages to collage panels, from paintings to graphic design works. Rather than use a chronological approach to lead readers on a necessary but boring time travel, the book opens with a succinct summary of Rex Ray’s accomplishments.
The foreword, contributed by Douglas Coupland, is anecdotal and harkens back to the initial point of interaction that took place at a Rex Ray show in a hair salon. While the friendship was sealed over dinner, it is the coherence that runs through his thoughts and works, a layered order that meanders through colorful organic shapes, drawing you in with juxtapositions of bold prints on finely textured wood and linen that steals your attention. It’s true when Coupland describes in the foreword of a “Holy Shit!” moment that one gets when chancing upon an unexpected gem.
Coupland’s message essentially says it’s possible that you’ll dislike what you see when you first enter a Rex Ray exhibition. It’s also very likely that, moments later, you’ll find yourself wondering who’s behind those works and how you can get your hands on them.
Arts and culture writer Michael Paglia’s essay is decidedly less personal but no less revealing, giving deeper insight into Rex Ray the person, as well as the writer’s own observations of the artist’s evolvement and influence.
With a client’s list that reads like a who’s who in the industry—Apple, Dreamworks, Sony Music and Warner Brothers—this one-time record store salesclerk has certainly come a long way. Rex Ray has designed album covers and other paraphernalia for The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, R.E.M., Bjork, U2, and Beck. His mainstream relevance is not surprising then, for this artist professes to have crafted “fake Warhols and Jackson Pollocks to hang in our hallway” as a mere fifth grader.
Both masters would have been proud to see how far their “protégé” has come, in terms of drawing from the ‘60s laissez-faire approach to convey traces of the psychedelic experience, lifting its audience into the realm of hyperrealism. At the same time, Rex Ray retains his credibility as an artist, because he does not allow himself to get carried away or restricted by technology. He simply does what catches his imagination and runs with it.
It’s not wrong to say this marriage of art sensibilities and design techniques has come together quite fittingly. Through his willingness to traverse different mediums and challenge his limits, Rex Ray’s works are strangely awakening in their effect, not the type of thing you would hang up on a wall and forget about it. Every time you look, you’ll discover more hidden within its nooks and crannies.
The book concludes with an interview conducted in 2006 by California College of the Arts professor and former ID magazine editor Steven Skov Holt, where the rebellious and fearless streak that guides his interviewee’s philosophy is apparent. Rather than languish in uncertainty through his darkest hours, Rex Ray has chosen to plough right through with an innate fearlessness, a characteristic the artist reveals took him years to discover.
While art opens our eyes to different universes, Rex Ray brings an otherworldly appeal to the gallery that inspires and makes you content to gaze for hours at its sheer energy and beauty, motivated by a gritty resilience towards life.
© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
Title: Rex Ray: Art + Design
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Foreword: Douglas Coupland
Essay: Michael Paglia
Interview: Steven Skov Holt
It’s hard to find a piece of work by Rex Ray that’s not likeable. In this sense, this fine artist-designer has succeeded. In fact, the more one flips through his compendium of works—from mixed media collages on resin, paper, wood and linen to large scale canvas paintings—the general feeling is one of growing attraction. Just when you thought you’ve seen enough, a turn of the page reveals a fresh element that lets you see the artist in a different light.
That ability to eschew set boundaries and reinvent preconceptions is perhaps the ultimate key to Rex Ray’s staying power, whether it’s with long-time friend and collaborator David Bowie or in art circles throughout the United States. That, coupled with the single-minded purpose of creating beautiful images in a world where shock tactics can veer from bizarre to the outright abominable. It’s much harder to keep audiences excited when all that’s being presented is predominantly abstract expressionism.
It starts making sense when you trace his roots as a suburban kid growing up with the punk rock movement. It’s probably harder to believe that before these spontaneous bursts of colour, Rex Ray had a “black-out” of sorts during the Aids crisis as a student at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). Those free-form collages remain an indelible aspect of his current portfolio, revealing his determination to do something “juvenile, mindless, and rudimentarily creative” in defiance of his commercial popularity. The large-scale canvas, intimidating to any painter, became his personal fort from stagnancy.
This reluctance to conform to any particular genre is evident in this neatly categorized compendium of his best works thus far, from paper collages to collage panels, from paintings to graphic design works. Rather than use a chronological approach to lead readers on a necessary but boring time travel, the book opens with a succinct summary of Rex Ray’s accomplishments.
The foreword, contributed by Douglas Coupland, is anecdotal and harkens back to the initial point of interaction that took place at a Rex Ray show in a hair salon. While the friendship was sealed over dinner, it is the coherence that runs through his thoughts and works, a layered order that meanders through colorful organic shapes, drawing you in with juxtapositions of bold prints on finely textured wood and linen that steals your attention. It’s true when Coupland describes in the foreword of a “Holy Shit!” moment that one gets when chancing upon an unexpected gem.
Coupland’s message essentially says it’s possible that you’ll dislike what you see when you first enter a Rex Ray exhibition. It’s also very likely that, moments later, you’ll find yourself wondering who’s behind those works and how you can get your hands on them.
Arts and culture writer Michael Paglia’s essay is decidedly less personal but no less revealing, giving deeper insight into Rex Ray the person, as well as the writer’s own observations of the artist’s evolvement and influence.
With a client’s list that reads like a who’s who in the industry—Apple, Dreamworks, Sony Music and Warner Brothers—this one-time record store salesclerk has certainly come a long way. Rex Ray has designed album covers and other paraphernalia for The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, R.E.M., Bjork, U2, and Beck. His mainstream relevance is not surprising then, for this artist professes to have crafted “fake Warhols and Jackson Pollocks to hang in our hallway” as a mere fifth grader.
Both masters would have been proud to see how far their “protégé” has come, in terms of drawing from the ‘60s laissez-faire approach to convey traces of the psychedelic experience, lifting its audience into the realm of hyperrealism. At the same time, Rex Ray retains his credibility as an artist, because he does not allow himself to get carried away or restricted by technology. He simply does what catches his imagination and runs with it.
It’s not wrong to say this marriage of art sensibilities and design techniques has come together quite fittingly. Through his willingness to traverse different mediums and challenge his limits, Rex Ray’s works are strangely awakening in their effect, not the type of thing you would hang up on a wall and forget about it. Every time you look, you’ll discover more hidden within its nooks and crannies.
The book concludes with an interview conducted in 2006 by California College of the Arts professor and former ID magazine editor Steven Skov Holt, where the rebellious and fearless streak that guides his interviewee’s philosophy is apparent. Rather than languish in uncertainty through his darkest hours, Rex Ray has chosen to plough right through with an innate fearlessness, a characteristic the artist reveals took him years to discover.
While art opens our eyes to different universes, Rex Ray brings an otherworldly appeal to the gallery that inspires and makes you content to gaze for hours at its sheer energy and beauty, motivated by a gritty resilience towards life.
© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.