Bio
Margo Ray is a printmaker, painter and book artist from the Big Island of Hawai’i. She holds an MFA from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec and a BA in Studio Arts from University of Hawaii at Hilo. She currently lives in Honoka’a and is co-owner, with her husband of Ironwood Custom Framing and Design in Kamuela, Hawaii.
Photo by Sally Lundburg
AGGROculture
Founded in 2010, AGGROculture is a Hawaii based art collective consisting of Margo Ray, Scott Yoell, Keith Tallett and Sally Lundburg. We create, showcase and promote cutting edge and challenging concepts in contemporary art. Being just East of West, Hawaii is a microcosm for issues of local and global concern. We explore this rich culture and diversity in our work, and strive to be a voice counter to the fiction of paradise and pre-contact idealism.
As a collective we support and encourage each other’s art practices, collaborate on themed exhibitions, and present other artists to our island community.
Find out more at aggroculture.org
Artist Statement
My art practice is collage based. I approach my work through the process of collection: postcards, tourist memorabilia and photography. I make notebooks with the raw material that I collect - my process is intuitive, random and excessive and represents artistic responses to my experience of the world. In my installation works I have evolved an iconic language inspired by Hawaiian Ranching culture utilizing collage, print media, sculpture and animation. Inspired by the Hawaiian landscape where I was raised, where the ‘wild west’ of American myth is here pushed to the edge of westward expansion. I create surreal compositions using the allegory of landscape that integrate drawn and photographic images of animals, plants, explosions, comets and airplanes. In them I explore notions of displacement, vulnerability and authenticity as well as my relationship to natural and super natural worlds; drawing attention to the complicated triangulation of relationships between man, land, and animal and the notions of freedom, domestication and prey.
Contact
Get in touch with Margo at the following address:
Curriculum Vitae
Education
2003-2006
Concordia University, Master of Fine Arts, Print Media.
Montreal, Quebec
1999-2002
University of Hawai’i at Hilo, Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art. Graduated with Honors.
Hilo, Hawai’i
2001
Peking University, Chinese culture study summer program
Peking, China
1995
Evergreen State College, first year program in arts and public service.
Olympia, Washington
Solo and 2-3 Person Exhibitions
2010
The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center, 999 Bishop Street, Honolulu, HI. July 16-Oct.15 “Between Worlds, Waters Flow”
Second Street Gallery, 115 Second St. SE, Charlottesville, Virginia. June-July “Sublime Spaces, Forgotten Places”
2009
Centre D’Exposition De Val-David, 2495 rue de L’Eglise, Val-David, Quebec. Sept 19-Nov 15, “Seconde Nature”, with Valerie Levasseur and Monique Gagne
Hui No’eau Visual Art Center, 2841 Baldwin Ave., Makawao, Maui Aug 21-Sept, “Postcards, Snapshots and Collected Lamentations”
IdSpace, Kurtistown, Hawaii Island www.hiartmagazine.com, Jan-Feb, “Containment Landscapes”
2007
Town, 3453 Wai’alae Ave, Honolulu, HI Nov 6-Jan 7 “Tales of Fortune and Disguise”
Arts at Marks’s Garage, 1159 Nuuanu Ave., Honolulu, HI. Nov 29- Jan 6 “The Sun Never Sets” with Susan Maddox and Adam Chapman.
2006
Kahilu Theatre Gallery, 67-1886 Lindsey Road, Kamuela, HI. Oct 15-Nov 3 “Palanehe-Noiseless” with Laurie Anderson “The End of the Moon”
Parisian Laundry, 3550 St.Antoine West, Montreal. March 10-25 “Splendid Isolation”
2004
Bourget Gallery, 1230 de la Montagne, Montreal. Dec1-15 “Surprisingly Narrow Paths” Video and collage installation.
Roy Street Collective, rue Roy, Montreal. May 31-June14 “Postcards, Snapshots and Apocalyptic Surreal Landscapes”
University of Hawaii Campus Center Gallery, 200 W. Kawili St., Hilo, HI, “Alumni in Exhibition”
2003
Dean’s Office Student Art Exhibition, Dean of Arts and Sciences Office, University of Hawai’i at Hilo. January 15- May 15
2002
Mayor’s Foyer Exhibition, Mayor’s Office, Hilo, Hawai’i. November 15- January 15
Group Exhibitions
2012
AGGRO Roadshow
Fishcake
Honolulu, HI
Hui No’eau Annual Juried Exhibition Hui No’eau Visual Arts Center Makawao, Maui
84th Honolulu Printmakers Annual Exhibitiion Honolulu, HI
2011
Loose Women
Fishcake
Honolulu, Hawaii
2010
AGGROCulture
The Arts At Mark’s Garage, Honolulu, Hawaii and
The Wailoa Art Center, Hilo, Hawaii.
Regionalism: New Art By North American Printmakers
DIVA Center
Eugene, Oregon
82nd Annual Honolulu Printmakers Exhibition
Honolulu, HI
2009
Accession 09’: Recent Acquisitions from the Art in Public Places Collection
The Hawaii State Art Museum
Honolulu, Hawaii
ComPRESS
The Arts at Mark’s Garage
Honolulu, Hawaii
The Memory of Water
The East Hawaii Cultural Center
Hilo, Hawaii
81st Honolulu Printmakers Annual Exhibition
Honolulu, Hawaii
2006
Rotary Blue
Galerie Circulaire
Montreal, Quebec
Honolulu Printmakers Annual Exhibition
Honolulu, Hawaii
2005
Honolulu Printmakers Annual Exhibition
Honolulu, Hawaii
Clean Hands
VAV Gallery
Montreal, Quebec
Public Collections and Awards
2011
Hawai’i Sate Foundation on Culture and The Arts , Art in Public Places Collection, ‘Once Upon A Cowboy”
2010
2010 Hawai’i Sate Foundation on Culture and The Arts, Art in Public Places Collection, ‘Containment Landscape #6-Print Version”
2009
Hawai’i Sate Foundation on Culture and The Arts , Art in Public Places Collection, ‘Containment Landscape #4-Print Version”
2008
Contempo 2008, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, “Containment Landscape #4”
2004
Biblioteque National du Quebec Artist Book Collection ‘Water Tank’, 44-page hand made book work.
Grants and Residencies
2011
St. Michael's Printshop
Visiting Artist Residency
St. John's, Newfoundland
2009
Kala Art Institute
One-Month Artist In Residence
Berkeley, California
2008
Atelier de I’lle
Emerging Artist Residency Grant
Val-David, Quebec
2003
Interuniversitaire des arts mediatiques
CAIM Grants for Students
Montreal, Quebec