He was actually born human, in London, in 1958, and emigrated to Toronto, Canada, in 1967. He attended the Ontario College of Art from 1976 to 1980 before starting work as a medical artist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, where he spent his time doing medical and technical drawings, including documenting animal research and creating visual tools for brain-damaged children.
Ray started using a computer screen as a canvas more than 10 years ago, and is best known for his eerie three-dimensional digital art, which portrays children with odd bodyparts such as elongated claws for hands, curling tails, and bodies conjoined with antique machinery. Bizarre made him down tools and rest his paws to tell us about his extraordinary life. And his penchant for dollies...
Tell us about your childhood. Is it true you used to speak to people who weren't there?
Yes, but you learn very early to keep your mouth shut as a child. It sure did upset my old dad a bit. In fact, it made him fucking furious when I insisted I heard a woman whispering when I stood behind all the clothes in my closet. I explained that she said nice things, and I think my mother had similar moments but thought it wasn't a good idea to talk about it back then. It has now developed into something called sleep paralysis - upon waking I cannot move, and during that time I see and hear what I call 'visions'.
What about your early fascination with dolls?
I am still playing with dolls, but they are now 3D digital dolls. There was a lot of puppetry on television when I was a kid - Supercar, Stingray, Fireball XL5, Bill And Ben The Flower Pot Men, Sooty And Sweep and Noddy. It seemed to me there was this wonderful world of moving, talking dolls and somehow reality and the toy world got mixed up for me. My childhood was difficult as I grew up in a 'volatile' family and the world of dolls became my escape. When children have no kind words in an unstable world they hear them from the only friends they have, even if those words are spoken by dolls.
My home in south London was one of the few in the early 1960s with a television set, and back then it was a haven for bookies and nasty Jack the lad types smoking in the kitchen, and drinking endless cups of tea. Some of them were OK, but most were not. I remember never wanting to be like these men, so I hid away in my small, secret worlds, drawing patiently and making windows into places where dolls talked kind words. My older sister Jackie gave me a huge doll with only one leg, and I used to keep all my toys up inside the cavity. If you walked into my room you would often find me with my arm up inside her crotch looking for some toy. I wrote all over her body with a ballpoint pen and whenever I see tattoos it reminds me of that old friend of mine.
How early did your interest in art manifest itself and who influenced you then?
I probably had no idea what 'art' was at the age of five or six. Like a lot of kids, I drew because there was nothing else to do. When I was nine and living in Canada my brother gave me a small book on Salvador Dali and I looked at it every night. When I was 15, I met a Japanese girl called Michiko. She said I should go to art college. I married Michiko and we've been together for 32 years now. I think I just went to art college to impress her. I think it worked out.
How did you create your art before 3D modelling technology came into your life?
I used pencils, paint, ink, peas and mashed potatoes. I sculpted for quite a while and cast in cement. I used an airbrush and painted on bottles. I mainly painted as a way to deal with working in a children's hospital. I would draw and paint a certain thing over and over, like an obsession. I once saw burn marks from an iron on a child's skin, and for some reason painted and drew pictures of irons over and over for years; then I would destroy them, and this seemed to help remove the imagery from my head. Sometimes, I'd paint on a small piece of wood and bury it in the backyard as if to put the image to sleep.
I first approached a gallery in my mid-40s after having drunk a bit too much one night and emailed an image to the Jonathan Levine Gallery. I am still not sure if it was the right thing to do.
When did you begin experimenting with digital art?
In 1984, I was working at The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, and because everyone else was 20 years older they asked me to go and look at a strange little device called a Mac. I arrived at an empty warehouse with a table and a single Mac 128K sitting on it, and when they let me try Macpaint I laughed so hard tears ran down my face. I thought it was the funniest thing I ever saw and immediately fell in love. I dreamt that night of pull-down menus and undo buttons.
What did you do at the children's hospital and what were the positives and negatives of working in such a place?
I worked in the Art and Photography Department as a medical artist. The negatives would be the sheer and heartless cruelty that some people can inflict on a child (and other living things like research animals) and the heart-wrenching unfairness of nature as it deals out its own brand of fate. The positives would be seeing how miracles actually work. They aren't some beatific light from God but take years and decades to create. A child decides to become a doctor and then later works like a mule for years to become a surgeon and then one day musters the courage to cut open the ribcage of my niece and patch a hole in her heart.
Why did you leave the hospital?
I saw a series of forensic photos of a young murder victim. There isn't a day that goes by that I do not think of that child. I don't know who she was but I remember the look on her face and what was done to her and my work is about giving peace to that in our world that causes such sorrow and pain. I want to make a window into a world where all those lost spirits can find safety and refuge and be at peace.
Why do you make the subjects of your work look so vulnerable, yet so knowing?
Because I found out I am very vulnerable and very knowing, but I don't know why termites know how to build massive complex cities that always face south. Each single termite couldn't contain that complex knowledge in its tiny brain, but as a group they seem to know like cells in a body know how to grow. I think our species has the same knowledge but so many ignore it. I think the dream 'hallucinations' I see are part of that sea of collective thought, and life isn't exactly what we think it is. My world and my soul exist in a big old mansion on the edge of that sea and each picture is a room in that old place. The salt of that sea preserves me and each wave is a dream of what lies below that ocean.
Do you model your characters' faces on people you know?
All my children have skin made of my own and my wife's skin. I modelled us as children with a mixture of our features. I have eight nieces and one nephew and I can see them all in my work too. My sisters and brother and father and our scars and blemishes also. I never saw a photograph of my mother as a child but shortly after her death I experienced a series of dreams and visions of her visiting me as a child. She was very happy and the look on her face is burned into my mind.
Your pictures seem quite desolate and lonely. Does this reflect aspects of your life?
I don't think they are desolate. Maybe a bit lonely but they are calm. I think my pictures are an entrance to another world and my figures the host and guardians of that place. What lies beyond them is only limited by your very own imagination. As you look into their world remember they are looking into ours, and if there is a sadness in them, it is their love of us and their desire for us to make our own world a better place.
What responses have you had to your work?
All the nasty comments are drained out my left ear into a big bucket, then I search the entire internet for any clue I can find of the nasty sender and email it off to an invisible friend called Benny Bonehands, who takes care of them for good! Then I get back to work. I have always thought the best art is that of a mirror that can reveal something to the viewer about themself. I'm reminded of that story of the person that invented the mirror and was immediately lynched by the people that didn't like what they saw in his work.
You've been likened to fellow artist Mark Ryden (see Bizarre 108). What do you think of his work?
Nice work that Mark does! I have never met the man and I do get some comparisons to him. I see some similarity and some difference in our work. People speak of having a style; all I know is this is the way I have worked for 30 or 40 years and I don't think I could change the look or manner of my work even if I wanted to. Like Popeye says, "I yam who I yam."
What would you do if you weren't making digital art?
I suppose I could work at McDonald's. I think I'd rather cook the Filet-O-Fish than work at the front with the public, but that's just a preference and I have done similar work in my past. Maybe I could find a job sending spam, as there is a big demand for that. I love what I do and that is enough reason to keep doing it. I think it is a waste of life to not work towards doing the things you love.
If the characters in your art could come alive what do you envision them saying or doing?
I think they are alive and I think they are kind and have empathy and I think they have a rich sense of humour. I think they are strong in their world with their spells of cats and bats and spiders and dogs. I think they say kind, calm, healing things. I think they do good and stand as guardians to a kinder, more gentle place. I often dream of them and they are like long-lost friends, and I am happy in their worlds.
MORE FILM AND MUSIC
