Joe Ray: Complexion Constellation

June 17 - August 5, 2017

Overview

Joe Ray: Complexion Constellation is a thematic solo exhibition of sculpture, painting, photographs, collage and performance by the Los Angeles-based artist. This monographic presentation emphasizes the artist’s 50-year exploration of both “inner and outer space” from 1968 - 2017. Joe Ray (USA, b. 1944) grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana and studied fine art at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1962, where he was one of few black students in a previously segregated college. Ray arrived in Los Angeles, in 1963, at the age of 20; in 1965 he was inducted into the US Army and sent to Viet Nam, two weeks after the Watts Riots. Upon his return, Ray moved to Leimert Park, and committed himself to his art making.

The title of the exhibition – “Complexion Constellation” – refers to text painted across “In Space,” 1980, an intergalactic landscape painting, from a series of Ray’s “Nebula” paintings that began in the late 1970s. Using acrylics and aerosol paint, these “Nebula Paintings” continue his exploration of outer fields of vision with an affinity for early 20th Century Impressionism.

This show also includes photographs, such as documentation of early performances (with Doug Edge and Terry O’Shea) at Robert Irwin’s studio for “The Market Street Program,” 1971; “The Green Hotel Performance,” 1972 (with Tony Ramos and Lowell Darling); and an untitled series of thirty-one silver prints (1970-1972), made during visits home to Louisiana while a student at CalArts. These vintage photographs, on loan from LACMA, were created as a result of the artist’s desire to represent the people and places he grew up around -- predominantly children only one generation removed those who picked cotton. These children are referenced again in “Fields To The Yard,” (2014), a series of monoprint collages that speak to the implications of President Obama’s legacy on generations of residents of the American South.