Bio:
Ray Sumser was born in Westminster, Maryland and moved to Northern California at age eight in 1993. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a dual major in Painting and Film and is now based out of Santa Cruz’s Artspace Tannery Lofts. He recently completed his most ambitious project to date: a six by nine foot oil canvas consisting in over 1,500 recognizable pop culture icons. A child of entrepreneurs, Sumser has made a poster of his massive piece and is selling in shops around the bay area. He has posted over 500 daily pieces of art on his website.


Artist Statement:
My process is one of collection and presentation. I search, identify and isolate whatever little element of humanity - whichever itty-bitty tuft of the stuff we have in common – and nail it down. I study, explore and elaborate.

Where that has occurred for me, over the past several years, is in pop-fiction narratives. Art, in high and low form, is testament to our unspeakable relatedness. It is just the droppings of a certain kind of animal. We all know the smell of that. We can all see sickness and health.

I use forms and themes of modern mass-media culture in line with traditional archetypal concepts. The collective consciousness is not so holy as we tend to think – nor are our modern mascots so depraved.

I, like many of my age, have been raised before the screen – my psychic map is marked by lessons from giant yellow birds, fast blue hedgehogs and flying orange dogs. With little effort we reclaim these narratives as our own. In that process we imbue them with authentic meaning and redirect the weight of their commercial nature.

Studio Location:
Artspace Tannery Lofts
1040 River Street #222
Santa Cruz, California 95060

Website:
www.raysumser.com
www.comicosm.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ray-Sumser/108338528506

Contact Information:
rayraywhatray@gmail.com

Please check out Ray's events and showings on his website.