A work by Rex Ray (at left) in the Turner Carroll Gallery, 2011.
Born as Michael Patterson on September 11, 1956, on a United States Army base near Landstuhl, Germany, and he was raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado.[2] He started making art in childhood, and by the 1970s he was part of the mail art movement which was when he adopted the pseudonym "Rey Ray" based on a 1950s toy raygun brand of the same name.[3] He said he changed his name to Rex Ray in order to start anew and be free of his past.[4]
Early in his career he worked as a digital graphic designer for nightclubs and for music shows.[2] He designed and performed with The Residents, as well as designed for David Bowie, among others.[5]
By the early 1990s he started a professional fine art practice.[2] Ray had been one of the first artists to use Mac computer-based technology to create his art.[6] He had two units in the Allied Box Factory building in the Mission District in San Francisco, one was his living space and the other was his art studio.[1][7]
Ray referred to his artwork as "paintings" even though they were often collage-based and lacked any traditional painting techniques.[3] His larger works were made by custom printing on colored paper, which was adhered to a canvas with a wet glue; and as the glue got tacky, Ray would cut patterns into the papers, as well as collage with them, and finish the process by sealing the surface with resin.
He died February 9, 2015, after a five year battle with lymphoma and was remembered by SFGate as a "versatile graphic designer who created book covers, tour posters and album art in San Francisco for 35 years."[1]
