Chicago, IL — Painting · Weaving · Screenprint · Installation
Ray A. Laventure is a contemporary multimedia artist making large-scale abstract paintings, hand-woven textiles, screenprints and immersive installations — work built from repetitive mark-making and layered fields of colour.
“I aim to reproduce this sensation for my audience — to captivate and confuse, soothe and stun.”
Artist statement
Abstraction is something I experience in real time, every day.
As someone with a visual impairment, objects in the distance are ill-defined, ordinary environments can be overwhelming and difficult to parse, and the world is at times painfully bright and saturated. I aim to reproduce that sensation for my audience.
I'm deeply fascinated by the hypnotic effects of repetitive mark-making, layered fields of colour, and large-scale installation. My paintings, prints and weavings are heavily inspired by abstract expressionists and colour field painters such as Mark Rothko and Josef Albers, as well as optical and pop art.
For me the creative process revolves around play, experimentation, and the ability to work intuitively and improvise within a self-assigned set of parameters.
Selected work — 2022 to 2024
Nineteen works across five media. Select any piece for full tombstone details, availability and a direct inquiry.
About the artist
BFA Studio Art, Keene State College. Recently relocated from southern New Hampshire to Chicago. Currently preparing MFA applications.
Ray makes work that asks you to slow down and look. Over the past two years his practice has centred on the concentric patterns and motifs found in rugs and quilts — textiles typically associated with feminine handicraft and domesticity, and with warmth, gathering and rest.
“These textiles offer a structure for composition, a container for colour, and can also become portals to familiar spaces.”
That research produced the Door paintings — canvases over six feet tall built from hundreds of hand-painted concentric bands — alongside cardstock weavings, screenprints, underglazed terra cotta, and a full immersive installation in which the artist's own garment was printed to match the walls.
Alongside the studio, Ray has worked as a gallery fellow at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, a studio monitor across painting, sculpture and photography, and a retail customer experience manager — teaching fine art and craft technique, de-escalating, hiring and coaching. He is passionate about education and community building, and is actively seeking MFA placement, gallery representation and commissions.
Inside the studio
Fourteen frames from the working studio — the walls, the benches, the mixed batches, and the mask that walks out of the paintings. Select any image to enlarge.
Curriculum vitae
Nine exhibitions, two fellowships, four awards. Full CV available as a text copy below or as a PDF on request.
Press & recognition
Coverage, fellowships and juried inclusion — the authority signals curators and admissions committees look for first.
A profile and studio interview produced by The Equinox, the student newspaper of Keene State College, covering the practice and the lead-up to the BFA exhibition.
Watch the feature Zachary Keenan · The Equinox · 4 March 2024Selected for a two-semester gallery fellowship — installing exhibitions, engaging visitors and maintaining the collection at Keene State's public art museum.
Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery · 2023–2024Recipient of the Dr. Bartlett C. Swett '56 Visual & Performing Arts Scholarship, the Michael D. Keller Memorial Award, and consecutive Art & Design Talent Scholarships. Member, Kappa Pi International Art Honor Society.
Keene State College · 2021–2024Studio diary
A short letter from the studio — work in progress, finished pieces as they come off the wall, and show announcements. No more than once a month.
Commissions · Exhibitions · Press
Commissions are open, and work is available for exhibition loan. Tell Ray what you have in mind — scale, palette, room, timeline.
Direct
ray.a.laventure@gmail.com
(603) 552-0416
instagram.com/ray_lav_art
Based in Chicago, IL. Work ships from the studio; large canvases are rolled or crated to order. Studio visits by appointment.
