Marcos Raya

Marcos Raya (born 1948 in Irapuato in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico) is a Mexican American/Chicano artist based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. He became known in the Mexican American neighborhood of Pilsen for his street murals. His studio is in the New City neighborhood.

Early life Raya spent the first 16 years of his life in Irapuato before moving to the United States with his mother and siblings. He enjoyed the year-round religious celebrations, which he described as "collective fiestas filled with music, alcohol, masks, and the Catholic church." Raya describes them as "not Catholic in the full sense of the term, but pagan." They were occasions for heavy drinking. On Sundays, he'd attend church: "I would go and make faces at saints. I thought they were ugly, barbarous, long-haired, just plain out of this world." From his window at home, he could "see prostitutes, boxers, singers, proletariats, just like here" [in Pilsen].

As noted in 1996: "Within the last three years Raya's paintings, installations, assemblages, photographs, and painted furniture have been featured in four Latino art exhibitions that have traveled Mexico, Japan, and the U.S." Raya's work has been shown in Riverside CA's The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture (2023). It is currently in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Frida: The Making of an Icon exhibition, which will travel to London.

His work is included in the permanent collections of Chicago's National Museum of Mexican Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Alfred Smart Museum at the University of Chicago, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Museum of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Much of Raya's artwork is influenced by his Mexican roots. When Raya was a child, he met Mexican street artist José Chávez Morado. Raya recalls this experience "I talked to him about how he mixed his paint and his beautiful images. Muralists were men you could talk to and relate to. They painted history and denounced war, political corruption, you name it. And they were also active politically." The term Chicano, formed in ahistorical context of oppression, has come to be associated with rebelliousness against racial oppression and the pressure of forced assimilation.

In Mexico, according to Raya, art has a "social-political dimension" a "beautiful tradition." He adds: "You become a public figure. You are the spokesman of the proletariat, of the oppressed." In this way, says Raya, "you speak for the people through the walls you paint." Drawing on his heritage, he transforms the image of La virgen into a critique of the society in which he is entrenched today.

One of his more recent works "Los hijos de la mala vida" or "The Sons of the Bad Life" depicts his old drinking buddies before they died, and Raya expresses his gratefulness for having left that life behind him.

Raya still lives in the same apartment he settled in 1980 in Pilsen, though his studio is in New City, Chicago. Having overcome his alcoholism, Raya frequently thinks about his friends who he has lost to alcoholism.

Books and Catalogs Durán, Yolanda, René H. Arceo-Frutos, and Mexican Fine Arts Center--Museum (Chicago, Ill). 1993. Art of the Other México : Sources and Meanings. Chicago, Ill.: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Griswold del Castillo, Richard, Teresa McKenna, and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, eds. and CARA National Advisory Committee. 1991. Chicano Art : Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985. Los Angeles: Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles.

Mesa-Bains, Amalia, and Mexican Museum. 1993. Ceremony of Spirit: Nature and Memory in Contemporary Latino Art. San Francisco: Mexican Museum.

Mexican Fine Arts Center--Museum (Chicago, Ill). 1988. Adivina! Latino Chicago Expressions: April 22, 1988-July 10, 1988, the Mexican Fine Arts Center--Museum. [Chicago]: The Museum.

Raya, Marcos, Edward M. Maldonado, and Festival Cultural de Mayo Guadalajara, Mexico) 2010. 2010. El Mundo Imaginario de Marcos Raya = the Imaginary World of Marcos Raya. Guadalajara, Jalisco, México: Gobierno de Jalisco, Secretaría de Cultura.

Raya, Marcos. 1997. Marcos Raya: The Anguish of Being. Chicago, IL, Raya Studio.

Raya, Marcos. 2004. Raya: Fetishizing the Imaginary. Chicago, Ill., Marcos Raya Book Project.

Tinterow, Gary, Gannit Ankori, Angélica Becerra, Arden Decker, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Circe Henestrosa, Magali Lara, et al. 2026. Frida: The Making of an Icon. Edited by Mari Carmen Ramírez. Houston, Texas, New Haven, Connecticut: The Museum of Fine Arts; Yale University Press.

Warren, Lynne, Francisco Piña, and Marcos Raya. 2017. Raya: The Fetish of Pain. Chicago, Illinois: El Beisman Press / Pilsen Fest.