We recently connected with Ray Hwang and have shared our conversation below.

Ray, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

On the technical side of art-making, I learned how to draw from watching cartoons on t.v. growing up but I didn’t learn to paint until later in my life when I was at community college. It was mostly trial and error, making a lot of bad paintings and figuring out my interests and inclinations. I don’t know if there was something I could’ve done to “speed things up” other than make more work and fuck up more times. And honestly I think that, as a skill, learning to fail and spotting things I could learn from in my failures became something essential that I carry through with me to the present day. If there was an obstacle I could name that stood in my way of learning more, it would be not always having the time… to continue to fuck up more often.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I got into art-making and being an artist in both an unintentional and intentional way. I never felt like being an artist was a “choice” (more like an addiction), but I originally thought I was going to do something practical and studied programming in high school so I did that for most of my time there until the very end when I decided I couldn’t spend my life sitting in front of a computer. At that point I said fuck it, went to community college, and took every art class I could like architecture, jewelry making, graphic design, sculpture, painting, illustration, etc. I wanted to simultaneously find my interests and also build a portfolio to transfer into an arts program at a university. Ultimately I ended up going to SVA for illustration, graduated, never made illustrations again, and decided to paint whatever I wanted because I was bad at listening to people tell me what to do.

I honestly don’t know what problems I’m solving for people who buy my work, if at all. I don’t know what sets me apart from others, nor do I care. I do have pride though in what I do. I work really hard at it, and I believe it has value. I often ask myself if I would continue making art if no one else ever saw it, and the answer has always been yes. Because I don’t make it for external validation. Like I said, it’s closer to an addiction to me than anything that might resemble a business or therapy or anything.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I’m not entirely sure what my reputation is, but I have some philosophic principles I do think about a lot when navigating my way through the art world.

– Be generous, because no one likes or wants to be around someone selfish.
– Be kind, because there’s so many talented people in NYC there’s a good chance you aren’t talented enough for people to put up with your stupid bullshit.
– Be respectful of people’s time. Meet your deadlines, make people’s jobs easier. Everyone’s busy and has other shit to do that’s not waiting around for you.

I try to be the type of person that I would want to work with and be around. Nearly every single opportunity I’ve gotten has been because someone out there believed in my work and likes me as a person. No one likes a diva, and there’s plenty of them out there.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

It’s being around people and having a community who understands you. Really understands you and your decision to live life a certain way and to pursue this specific thing of being an artist. Having a community that “gets it” is invaluable in a world that constantly devalues what creative people do. It’s a life that’s built around curiosity, interesting people, endlessly interesting conversations, and that’s always changing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rayhwangart.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/rayhwangart

Image Credits
Artist Portrait taken by Yekaterina Gyadu