by Rebecca Chia

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.

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.

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