Going Big

Rex Ray, Discolaria, 2009

This past week I was on vacation in Denver. I had a chance to check out the MCA Denver which is the only contemporary art museum in the city. The two main shows were Anthony Goicolea and Damien Hirst. In the Promenade Space, Cydney Payton curated a new installation by Rex Ray. Ray’s installation consisted a large painting/collage and a wallpaper. The painting is a mix of collaged images/prints, oil and acrylic paints on linen. When looking at the piece I thought about all of the possibilities one has when working with prints. They do not have to remain as traditional prints. They can become wallpaper or integrate themselves into paintings.  This piece ended up taking up the entire wall which was about 50 feet long. Our widest roll of inkjet paper is 60″x 100′. So if you are thinking about it it is possible to go big.

Wallpaper detail

via the MCA Denver
“For Rex Ray, the joy of making and viewing art is his continuing motivation. Drawing inspiration from his acknowledged influences—the Arts and Crafts Movement, Abstract Expressionism, organic and hard-edged abstraction, pattern and textile design, and Op Art—Ray playfully combines these formalist concepts with decorators’ tips gleaned from lowbrow publications and sources of popular culture in his pursuit to create beautiful things. Gracefully bridging the gap between fine and applied art, he distinguishes himself in each realm.

As a fine artist, Rex Ray works in a wide range of media, including painting, collage, print works, and photography. His collages grew out of the simple pleasure of cutting shapes from magazine pages, assembling and gluing them to paper to create visually pleasing works that have since developed into sophisticated resin-covered panels. In his large-scale canvas paintings, like the one on view at MCA DENVER, he conceives abstracted landscapes from biomorphic shapes and distinct color combinations as a fresh adaptation of an aesthetic that sympathizes with twentieth-century Modernism.”

For more information on Rex Ray’s work please visit his website.
For more information on the MCA Denver please visit their website.

Meg