Ray Rawlings

Venue

Venue Facilities

Artist statement

Retiring to Berkshire was an opportunity for me to capture the architecture of Oxford. Holidays in Tuscany inspired me to choose historic towns as subjects for my work. Born the son of a railwayman, I inherited the reference material for my themed paintings. Currently I take inspiration from the beautiful countryside and coast throughout Devon and Cornwall.

Extended Bio

Ray was born in 1934, the youngest in a family of seven, at Datchet, a Thameside village near Windsor. After a wartime interrupted education at the local school he was apprenticed to a commercial art studio in Ludgate Hill, London. After a brief interlude for National Service, he took the risk of becoming freelance, working for leading London advertising agencies in his speciality which was typographical layout and lettering. Success led to a studio of specialist artists growing up around him, able to prepare and complete camera-ready artwork for the advertising and printing industries. Married in 1960 he moved to Sandhurst, Berkshire, and after their family had flown the nest Francis and Ray moved to Fawley, a small village on the Berkshire/Oxfordshire border. It was from here in 1995 that he retired and began to paint in watercolour for his own pleasure. He held his first successful one-man exhibition at the Museum of Oxford in 1997, leading to many more exhibitions, commissions and his work appearing in personal collections worldwide. The attention to detail shown in his work reflects his commercial training, highlighting his ability to control a brush of any size while maintaining the freedom that is watercolour. Ray is a past member of the Oxford Art Society, is a member of The Guild of Railway Artists and has exhibited at the Royal West of England Academy.