We are pleased to announce Joe Ray: I Can Hear The Scream, a historical solo exhibition of painting, sculpture, and photographs by the Los Angeles-based artist.

Joe Ray is a Louisiana native who has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 1963. Ray is a unique voice in the L.A. art community, a man who coexisted in many communities, from Light and Space, to Ferus, to the community around Cal Arts in the early 1970s. This alchemy of associations and interests fed an artistic practice that was promiscuous in its material pursuits and always in dialogue with the cutting edge of artmaking in Los Angeles. 

In Ray’s second solo exhibition at Diane Rosenstein Gallery, following a 2017 survey of his work, Ray presents a body of work which reflects directly on a particular traumatic cultural moment in the history of Los Angeles, the horrific assault of Rodney King, the acquittal of the police officers guilty of the beating, and the protests and civil unrest that followed in the 1992 L.A. Riots. Most of the suite of paintings, sculptures, and photographs on view were completed in 1993, and a number of the works were shown originally in 2014’s Prospect.3: Notes for Now, curated by Franklin Sirmans. 

Joe Ray (US b. 1944) was born in Alexandria, Louisiana, and arrived in Los Angeles in 1963.  After he returned from Viet Nam, he settled in Leimert Park; and began making resin-based sculpture.  He first showed his artwork in the 1969 4th Annual Watts Summer Festival Art Exhibition; received the 1970 Young Talent Award from LACMA; then in 1973 received his BA from Cal Arts where he was mentored by John Baldessari and Nam June Paik.  Joe Ray was one of 15 members of the original MOCA Artists Advisory Council from 1978-1980.  His work has never been confined to a specific medium or style and has shifted between representation and abstraction, sculpture, painting, and photographs. His work is in the permanent collection of LACMA, where he was included in Made In California: Art, Image and Identity (1900 - 2000); and was notably included in L.A. Object & David Hammons Body Prints (2007) at Tilton Gallery (NY) and Roberts & Tilton (LA).  Joe Ray received a 50-year survey, Complexion Constellation, at Diane Rosenstein Gallery in 2017.  He lives and works in Los Angeles.