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I’m a professional artist and muralist with many years experience. My fine art paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the country. I have also completed numerous murals and public projects in communities and locales across the United States and Canada.

My career has developed in a somewhat unconventional way, as over the years two distinct styles have emerged and seem to want to persist: a traditional style of quite literal realism and, side by side, a more intuitive one that results in what might be described as a species of hybrid abstraction. I used to worry a lot about my perceived inability to settle down to just one thing. But now I tend to see it as a strength rather than weakness. I think it keeps me away from dogmatic approaches to artmaking. More importantly it gives me the tools both technical and philosophical to work in an open-minded and innovative way.

In my recent representational paintings I re-commit to the simple art of observation. I cross my fingers and hope for magic—that mysterious alchemy that can occur when what is seen and processed by the mind finds its way through brush to canvas and comes out somehow altered, resonant, transformed. Searching for that magic is what keeps painters painting.

My murals and realist paintings can be seen at http://www.dongraymurals.com.

Recently I began "Daily Art West," an online journal of small daily paintings: http://www.dailyartwest.com

To see my contemporary work visit http://www.dongraystudio.com.

Night at the Movies

2006
oil on canvas
76x102 cm

After Hours

2006
oil on canvas
157x202 cm

Between Acts

2006
oil on canvas
180x198 cm

Night Entrance

2006
oil on canvas
76x102 cm

Shore Breeze

2004
oil on canvas
61x91 cm

Beachdog

2004
oil on canvas
149x198 cm

The Webmaster

2006
oil on canvas
51x61 cm

Gallery Light

2006
oil on canvas
61x76 cm