Opening Reception: Saturday, September 12, from 5-7pm

For the fall 2026 exhibition season, Themes+Projects gallery partners with Gallery 16 to celebrate the enduring legacy of Bay Area art legend REX RAY. Recognized for his bold color juxtapositions, complex layering of textures and forms, and distinctive visual beauty, the exhibition surveys collages on canvas, resin panels, and pigment prints created between 2000 and 2014 before his untimely passing in 2015.

Ray was an important figure in the Bay Area art community whose influence extended across painting, collage, graphic design, and printmaking. Throughout his career, he developed a distinctive visual language at the intersection of fine art and graphic design that became widely recognizable through both his gallery exhibitions and commercial collaborations with musicians, designers, and cultural institutions.

This exhibition marks a full-circle moment for Themes+Projects as we return to the work of an artist we first exhibited during the gallery's formative Palo Alto era in 2002. Our REX RAY exhibition is part of an ongoing celebration of Ray's work, coinciding with his retrospective on view at the Monterey Museum of Art (August 2026–January 2027) and the re-release of his book, We Are All Light (second edition), published by Gallery 16. Together, these exhibitions and publications offer an opportunity to revisit Ray's work and rediscover his lasting contribution to Bay Area visual culture.