Artist Joy Ray wants viewers to know that she’s “kind of obsessed with the end of the world. Everything seems a bit precarious right now, and I find myself thinking: what if it all goes sideways?”
If it does, the deep, lush, and highly sculptural works in her new Postapocalyptic Petroglyphs series, set to debut September 7th at Launch LA, will at least prepare viewers for the end of days with beauty and grace.
She relates “This stuff is pretty dark, but I’ve been thinking lately that it’s also optimistic: the desire to leave a mark indicates a faith that there will be someone around left to find it, to care.”
Works that she categorizes as artifacts, talismans, portals, and hieroglyphs are their own mysteries, each alluring, somewhat enigmatic, and magical.
“In my new body of work, I merge paint and textiles to create what I think of as mysterious artifacts from the end – or maybe the rebirth – of civilization. I explore how visual communication might be used in dire situations: to communicate covertly with others, to communicate with the gods, casting spells, or as a way of documenting history,” she says.
Ray’s work has evolved over the years from an artistic journey that began with what she calls “typical embroidery materials: hoops, self-made patterns, traditional stitches. But I started feeling like this was too rational, methodical and slow. I wanted to incorporate spontaneity, speed, and emotion into textile/fiber art.” With that in mind, she created her own vocabulary of stitches and began incorporating mixed media materials such as paint, plaster, sand, paper, chalk, “even burnt toast. Hand-sewing and fiber materials remain a central component of my work, but I think of what I do now as ‘textile paintings.’”
She creates work that is both intellectually and materially dense. According to Ray, “I’m very interested in creating 2D works that have a sculptural, physical quality. Lately I’ve been mixing construction sand with house paint to ‘concretize’ my canvasses, then deconstructing and reconstructing them to resemble hides. I use roving (loose wool) and bulky yarn to make patterns and symbols. I paint over the top of those with layers of thick gel mediums.”
The layering itself feels fused with tension and seems to represent an exposure of an almost geological slice of the soul. Perhaps it does.
“There’s something really terrifying and liberating about spending dozens of hours hand-sewing something, only to paint over the top of it,” Ray notes.
While each work is densely layered, the artist paints in minimal colors, still shaping a complete emotional palette. Ray explains “Like Pierre Soulages, I’m drawn to black, plus grayscale and a bit of red. This is both an aesthetic preference, a nod to the punk/goth aesthetic I grew up with, and a way to access the intuitive state in which I seek to work. I’m very interested in the role of chaos and accident and intuition in artmaking, like Brion Gysin and the automatic embroidery of Jeanne Tripier.”
A resident of both the Big Island of Hawaii and Los Angeles, it is not the vivid flora and fauna of either location that speak through her art, but rather the “stark and volcanic” landscape of parts of the Big Island. “Large areas are uninhabited, covered with old lava flows. When the Kilauea volcano was erupting last year, I found myself thinking a lot about what lies beneath the old flows, what communities and lives have been buried over the centuries,” Ray attests. “I’m fascinated that while the ground beneath our feet seems stable, actually it’s just a thin shell over a cauldron of magma that can burst out at any time. It speaks to the power of things that are unseen, lying just below the surface.”
The power of the unseen is what viewers may feel in viewing Ray’s current work. There is something both alchemic and tribal in her approach and in the finished works. There appear to be layers within layers, not just texturally, but with elliptical meaning seething just out of reach, ready to emerge in the fullness of time.
“What influences me most about living on the Big Island are depth and layers, hidden energetic forces and latent destruction. Just because we can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not there,” she relates.
Ray’s self-described interest in secret worlds, the archeological, and even the occult is an outgrowth of what she calls her long-standing fascination with mysterious things, including lost languages, secret societies, cults, and ancient ruins.
“There are petroglyphs all over the Big Island, but no one is really sure what they mean, or why they were made. It’s so interesting to think about dreams, the afterlife, ghost stories, magic—are these real? It’s not always possible to know the truth,” she says. “I love the feeling of existing in the presence of mystery.”
And that is a presence Ray herself shapes, an alluring one to viewers, and one that will be visible in upcoming exhibitions throughout Los Angeles.
Ray will be sharing the exciting two-artist exhibition Beyond/Within at Launch LA with Samuelle Richardson; also ahead are New School Abstract, at Shockboxx in Hermosa Beach; and Art Under Cover: A Top Secret Art Show at Shoebox Projects, Los Angeles.
- Genie Davis; photos supplied by the artist