Ray Smith was born in Brownsville, TX in 1959. Smith emerged in the 1980s, and continues to produce exuberant paintings and sculptures characterized by an inimitable style and subject matter that reflect his bicultural American and Mexican heritage. Contorted and morphed figures recur throughout his work, in a hybrid that draws from his early studies of fresco painting with traditional practitioners in Mexico, and an indebtedness to Picasso, the Surrealists, and the politically daring Mexican muralists. Through these varied beings, Smith reflects upon the complexities and absurdities of society, family, politics, culture, war, and the human condition itself, framed by birth and death.

Ray Smith has recently exhibited in galleries and museums like Nina Johnson (Miami), Lyle O. Reitzel (New York City), Stux Gallery (New York City), McClain Gallery (Houston, and Ruiz-Healy Art (Sant Antonio). His work is held in collections like the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta among many more.

Smith lives and works in New York City and Cuernavaca.