UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art

UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art

Las Vegas, Nevada

We believe everyone deserves access to art that challenges our understanding of the present and inspires us to create a future that makes space for us all.

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The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 2.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 1.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 3.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 4.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 5.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 6.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 7.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 8.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 9.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 10.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 11.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 12.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 13.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 14.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 15.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 16.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 17.
The tears are real, I’m crying by Thomas Ray Willis, Image 18.
  • Thomas Ray Willis
  • The tears are real, I’m crying, 2023
  • LED lights, thermoplastic, resin clay, acrylic, wood, extension cords, power strips
  • 120 x 74 in
  • Inv: 2024.13.001
  • In Storage
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Thomas Ray Willis
The tears are real, I’m crying, 2023
LEDs, acrylic, wood, glue, extension cords
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection
Gift of Heather Harmon
2024.13.001

Thomas Ray Willis credits the tone of his art to his Las Vegas upbringing: “a dichotomy of community and spectacle, consumption and production, reenactment and reality.” His works have often reflected those contrasts by probing into the ineffable difference between authentic private experiences (such as crying or suffering a disadvantaged childhood) and their public manifestations. In other areas of his practice—such as his 2015 exhibition at P3 Studio in The Cosmopolitan—he plays with the contrasts between our perception of art’s uniqueness and the reproducibility of objects in the commercial world. A smaller version of this artwork appeared in his 2018 installation, Thoughts and Prayers Casino. Willis is currently based in New York.
(DKS)

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