JOY RAY
book of myths
Reimagined Poetry Invitational
Redondo Pier, Horizon Gallery
121 W. Torrance Blvd, Redondo Beach CA
Opens Friday June 6, 6-9pm
On view June 7-8, 13-15, 20-22, 1-7pm
“the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth”
In 2023, artist Joy Ray relocated from a remote tropical island to a gritty neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles. Her experience of the ocean, once a daily part of her life, became distant and hallucinatory, increasingly informed by memory and imagination. Ray investigates this psychological-sensorial shift in a new body of work, presented in an immersive multisensory installation.
Ray’s new textile sculptures represent significant developments in her practice. Here, she leaves behind her previous black and white rectangular weavings for fluid, jutting textile assemblages in a brilliant swimming pool blue. These soft sculptures curl and hang, hogtied and splayed, languid and unsettling. Mounted on razor-sharp fish hooks and fishing line, and accompanied by audio and video interventions, the installation suggests a parafictional environment that is part natural history museum, scientific laboratory, and abattoir.
Across the surfaces of these works Ray has painted fragments of text from Adrienne Rich’s 1973 poem, “Diving into the Wreck.” This work posits the ocean as an altered state of consciousness where identities, genders and even species blur and multiply. These menacing and ambiguous waters reveal more profound realities: “the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth.”Like Rich’s poem, Ray’s sculptures consider what it means to descend into an unknown abyss, to discover lost histories, and to confront the aftermath of violence.
“I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.”
With thanks to audio contributors including:
Dina Cline
interdisciplinary artist
she/her
Los Angeles CA
dinaalexiscline.com
IG: dinaalexiscline
Dina Cline is a visual artist mapping the mess of affect through humor, iconography, and peripherals.
Shana Nys Dambrot
art critic, curator
Los Angeles CA
sndx.net
IG: shananys + 13thingsla
bianca gabrielle goyette
Papermaker & Performing Artist
She/They
Angel Fire NM
notesonbeing.me
IG: bgoesrogue
bianca gabrielle goyette is a multi-media and performing artist based in Angel Fire, NM and NYC. She is a papermaker, a sculptor, a writer, a performer/vocalist, and a photographer working in still and moving pictures. She works with materials and processes that speak to the strength and fragility of the human condition. bianca’s work is an exploration of things centered around other things in relation to other things.
Nicole Arocho Hernàndez
Writer
they/them
Montclair NJ
nicolearochohernandez.weebly.com
IG: nimaarhe
Nicole Arocho Hernàndez is a writer, editor, and educator born and raised in Puerto Rico.
Gerard O’Brien
he/him
Los Angeles CA
thelandinggallery.com
IG: reformgallery + thelandinggallery
Gerard O’Brien is the owner of the Landing Gallery in Los Angeles, a fine art gallery specializing in historically significant 20th century postwar works and a representative program of contemporary artists.
Collin J Rae
creator of sounds, words and visuals
he/him
Winchester VA / Niles IL
IG: collinjrae + stickingittou
Collin J Rae is a Michigan born visual and aural artist currently living and working in northern Virginia and Chicago Il. His photos have been published by TASCHEN books, European Photography Magazine, Secret Magazine, Carpazine and many others. His “asemic” works have been featured in various online and physical journals and his books of writings and illustrations are currently published by Alien Buddha Press.
Please note that some contributors wish to remain anonymous.