Brian Porray
=/'\0SCILL4T0R/'\= , 2012
Synthetic polymer, spray paint, paper on panel
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection
Gift of the Artist
2014.06.001

Born and raised in Las Vegas, Porray graduated from UNLV with a MFA in 2010. After graduation he moved to the Los Angeles area where he continues to live and work. In 2014 he explained to an interviewer that he began each day in his studio by cutting paper and “thinking in collage first. While I'm pasting the paper to the surface I start thinking in paint. It's a proximity thing. I need to get my hands on the work before I can tell what needs be painted and what needs to be paper.” During an interview for Maake magazine, he described the inspiration behind the series of works that includes =/‘\0SCILL4T0R/‘\=: “I was making paintings about a specific experience I had while looking at the Luxor—a very foreboding and drug-induced sense of terror and wonder […] Maybe this is how my relationship to Vegas functions—as an architectural or physical reference for a specific set of personal experiences.” Painting is valuable, he added, because “I love the feeling of looking carefully and slowly—of zoning out and coming back again… of really staring at something. I think paintings are particularly good at rewarding this kind of looking.”