Fay Ray b. 1978

Los Angeles-based artist Fay Ray explores the fetishization of objects, the construction of female identity, and forms abstracted from the natural world through high-contrast monochromatic photomontages and large-scale metallic sculptures. For her three-dimensional works, Ray compiles cast aluminum objects, bored volcanic rocks, wire, chain, and natural materials into suspended sculptural masses. Conflating syncretic worlds of worship and desire, the artist works across mediums borrow from the symbolism and composition of traditional religious relics alluding simultaneously to Mexican-American Catholicism and the visual languages of the occult. Ray’s sculptures and collages hint at the presence of a rematerialized body through a mysterious yet systematic organization of abstract form.

Diffusing the mythos of male abstraction, Ray transfigures aspects of her biography into source material for her work. For instance, she utilizes aluminum as a primary material that references her family’s multi-generational trucking business, which linked agricultural producers across California, Arizona, and Northern Mexico. Cast agave and cactus signal the presence of the desert in her childhood, while primary shapes like discs, bars, and crosses form altars and mobiles nodding both to her cultural heritage and modernist aesthetics. The scale, physical labor, connective elements, and process-based nature of her sculpture reflect the artist’s experiences of birth, creativity, and life-force as a mother of three; across her work, Ray asserts that the transformation to motherhood is powerful, cosmic, and irreversible, and she seeks to address that positionality through an ever-evolving balance of strength and morphability. 

Ray’s work consciously alludes to the history of Surrealism, which has been of interest since a childhood introduction by her father. She remains fascinated by the erotic, morbid, and morose, exploring how fusing discrete objects changes their meaning. This methodology can be seen in both the composition of her photo collages and the materials of her sculptures. Her photo collages integrate dense layers of images ranging from metal chains, body parts, glittery stars, crushed beer cans, leopard print, corn cobs, and the desert landscape, transforming these into partially abstract renderings of her subconscious; some of these works are larger than life or manifest in geometric or architectural shapes, lending another dimension of meaning to the images within them and creating a visual homology with her sculptures. Ray’s hanging sculptural works move between the registers of talisman and mobile, translating organic and geometric forms that echo portals, the silhouettes of bodies, and modernist grids, collectively shattering our expectations of the artist’s materials and abstraction. 

Fay Ray received her MFA from Columbia University and her BFA from Otis College of Art and Design. Solo exhibitions include The Soraya Art Gallery, California State University Northridge, Northridge, CA; Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Louis B James Gallery, New York, NY; JOAN, Los Angeles, CA; and Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Ray’s special projects and installations have been featured at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills and New York; REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA; and L.A.N.D. (Los Angeles Nomadic Division). Group exhibitions include Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris; The Mistake Room, Los Angeles and Mexico City; Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles, CA; Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; among others. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Palm Springs Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of art. Ray’s works have been reviewed by Artforum, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, New York Magazine, Brooklyn Rail, Riot Material, Wallpaper*, and Issue Magazine.