Ray was born in Tacoma, Washington and moved to Aomori, Japan when he was under a year old. He called this place home until his family relocated to Las Vegas when he was 11. While living as a Vegas local, Ray has been making a living creating live interactive experiences with his art in the streets of downtown Las Vegas. This venue for creating is important to him as he finds interacting with his ever-changing audiences to be essential to the ongoing theme of his pieces which is “interconnectivity.”
Ray’s original masterpieces are comprised completely of hand drawn dots that are created on a unique ”honey comb” window blind canvas. While it might not be readily apparent, within each of these pieces are thousands of names that have been accumulated from those who have stopped to explore Ray’s work. Everyone who stops is invited to dot their name on to his pieces thus making themselves a part of it forever. One of his aims in connecting these names is to break barriers that can often divide us such as religion, politics and classism and replace them with a web of unity that brings us all together in the present as a part of something bigger than ourselves.
One of the people that first inspired Ray to create art was his mother, Yoko, who was a fashion illustrator. As a young child he would regularly watch her work on her own designs. She would use these opportunities to incorporate Japanese characters into her work to teach Ray the language. These experiences along with his Japanese and Mexican heritage sparked his first interest in creating art. Some of Ray’s other inspirations include art from the Renaissance era, ancient works such as those of the Aztec’s and Indigenous Americans, as well as the art of M.C. Escher, Hieronymus Bosch and Georges Seurat. Additionally, Ray is inspired by improvisational Jazz as well as Rock and Rock, Blues, Punk and Hip Hop.
Ray’s first solo show was at the “Art’s Factory” located in downtown Las Vegas in April 2021. Additionally, he has taken his interactive style of work to places such as Sri Lanka, Portugal, Spain, France, Netherlands, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, as well as Vietnam and he is currently preparing to go on his next adventure.
