Quick Facts
Biography
Ray Carofano, born 1942 in New Haven, Connecticut, is an American photographer who lives and works in the Los Angeles port town of San Pedro. He studied at Quinnipiac College, Southern Connecticut State College and Paier School of Art. His self-education in photography began at an early age when his parents gave him the complete set of The Encyclopedia of Photography.
Life and Work
Carofano’s career in photography spans over fifty years. It was first a hobby, then a passion and finally a profession. In 1969 he started Ray Carofano Photography Inc., specializing in product photography with special effects. When he wasn’t shooting ads and brochures for clients he would be doing his own personal work. In 1991 he began focusing more on his fine art work and less on commercial work.
Carofano’s early work was mostly street photography - marginalized people on the fringes of society inspired by the sight of railroad “hobos” he’d witnessed as a boy. In 1998 he began Faces of Pedro, formal studio portraits of local "characters". Bill Kouwenhoven contributing editor to HotShoe Magazine wrote; “Ray’s portraits are haunted by the haggard visages and dark shadings that speak of those moving through long nights looking for something that was, and might never be again.” Carofano’s decades-long Faces of Pedro reflects his ongoing engagement with this early passion.
Carofano's subjects have shifted during his career, beginning with figurative subjects - even human feet - and moving towards landscapes and the Mojave Desert. The desert, and the detritus left by inhabitants long gone, started in 1993 and is on going. Broken Dreams, the 23-year project, examines the disconnect between the American dream of independence and the realities of social isolation. These subjects were further explored in his series Terrene and High Tension. The Terrene photographs reveal the artist’s penchant for documenting the environment as it cycles from life to death, desolation to renewal. His most recent work, riverrun, shot entirely in color, documents the Los Angeles River.
Criticism and Commentary
In 2014, Looking at Images, Brooks Jensen wrote about Carofano's Mystical Transformation photo series: "His highlights are sharp and precise, while the shadows are diffused. He combines the fully conscious and the deeply subconscious in his graphical images."
Karen Sinsheimer, Curator of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, described Carofano's work this way: "Whether the subject matter is of the human body, man-made structures or nature, Ray Carofano’s images are anything but commonplace. An artist who works solely with the camera, his subjects are reality-based yet he renders them with fresh vision. His indeterminate, desolate landscapes of matter mostly burnt, dying or dead are profoundly evocative, depending on the “psyche” of the viewer. To some, they suggest tranquil beauty, to others mystery and death. Carofano’s landscapes seem infused with metaphysical meaning."
Carol McCusker, Curator of the Harn Museum of Art, wrote: “In Carofano’s photography is a sense of deep time, history, erosion, decay, passage and renewal. He takes these abstract ideas and literally allows them to abstract the things he is drawn to. The edges of his world blur, creating images at once literal and metaphoric, apocalyptic and expectant. They are transcendent, reconciling the forces of nature with man’s optimistic attempt at permanence; within each a recurring cycle of cultural death and exultant rebirth."
Sheridan V. Merritt, Professor Emeritus, University of La Verne, from his catalog essay for riverrun at the Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography: "I must admit, when I began viewing Ray Carofano’s images of the Los Angeles Flood Channel I did not expect—did not intend—to find beauty, tenderness, resilience, or reason for optimism there. I was pleasantly surprised. For example, using the concrete channel walls and floor as backdrop and reflective sheets of water as mirrors, Carofano captures haunting kaleidoscopic images that lift the virtual conversation above the mundane coarseness of rebar, concrete slabs, and engineering genius to the possibility of transformation, even restoration"
Publications
- Chronicle Books, Two of a Kind, 2016
- Looking at Images, 2014
- LensWork, 2013
- Photography and the Art of Digital Printing, 2006
- Creative Visions, 2005
- Photographer’s Forum, 2004
- Black & White Magazine, 2002
- Museum Portfolio, SBMA, 2001
- Photo Metro News, 1999
- Photo Metro News, 1998
- Camera Arts, 1998
- LensWork, 1997
- Studio Photography, 1985
- Photography Annual, 1973
- 35mm Photography, 1973
- Camera, 1972
- Photography Annual, 1972
Collections
- Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA
- Fototeca de Cuba, Nat’l Archives, Havana, Cuba
- Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
- University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
- Private and Corporate throughout the U.S. and abroad
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
- 2016 riverrun, Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography, ULV, La Verne, CA
- 2015 riverrun, Warschaw Gallery, San Pedro, CA2012
- 2012 Time Out of Mind, LAHC Fine Arts Gallery, Wilmington, CA
- 2006 Terrene, Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2006 Terrene, Warschaw Gallery, San Pedro, CA
- 2006 Ray Carofano, Medea Gallery, San Pedro, CA
- 2004 Ray Carofano, Fototeca de Cuba, Havana, Cuba
- 2004 Ray Carofano /10 years, El Camino Collage, Torrance, CA
- 2003 Ray Carofano, Gallery Saintonage, Missoula, MT
- 2003 Personal Alchemies, Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, OR
- 2003 Faces of Pedro, Cypress College Gallery, Cypress, CA
- 2003 Personal Alchemies Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2002 terra phantasma, Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego, CA
- 2002 Ray Carofano, Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, OR
- 2001 X-Section, Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2001 Mystical Transformations, Benham Gallery, Seattle, WA
- 2000 X-Section, LA Harbor College, Los Angeles, CA
- 1999 Ray Carofano, Irene Carlson Gallery, Miller Hall, ULV, La Verne, CA
- 1999 Mystical Transformations, Galera de Arde Fotografo, San Miguel Allende, MX
- 1999 Ray Carofano, Gallery 215, Santa Anna, CA
- 1997 Mystical Transformation, Lallak + Tom Gallery, Chicago, IL
- 1997 Ray Carofano, Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, OR
- 1996 Ray Carofano, Level 3 Gallery, Huntsville, TX
- 1996 Ray Carofano, Southern Light Gallery, Amarillo, TX
Group Exhibitions
- 2015 – 2016 Warschaw / Winter II, Warschaw Gallery, San Pedro, CA
- 2014 Warschaw / Winter, Warschaw Gallery, San Pedro, CA.
- 2012 PSST: Art in San Pedro 2000 – 2012, Warschaw Gallery, San Pedro, CA.
- 2011 Peripheral Visions, John Wayne Airport, Santa Ana, CA
- 2008 Sea Change Redux, Board Room Gallery, San Pedro, CA
- 2007 Sampler, Warschaw Gallery, San Pedro, CA
- 2005 Ray Carofano, Istanbul Int. Contemporary Art Expo., Istanbul, Turkey
- 2005 Golden States, Staton-Greenberg Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
- 2004 New Directions, Santa Ana College, Santa Ana, CA
- 2004 Incognito, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA
- 2003 Coasts, Staton-Greenberg Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
- 2003 P.O.V.- Two Photographers, LAHC Fine Arts Gallery, Wilmington, CA
- 2002 Land, Staton-Greenberg, Santa Barbara, CA
- 2002 Ray Carofano, Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, OR
- 2001 Friends of the West, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
- 2001 Present Art VII, Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2000 Ray Carofano, SRO Photo Gallery, Lubbock, TX
- 2000 Director’s Choice, Portland State Univ., Portland, OR
- 2000 The New Pictorialist, Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, OR
- 2000 Director’s Choice, Art Center of the Ozarks, Springdale, AR
- 2000 The Salton Sea, Gallery 215, Santa Ana, CA
- 1999 Ray Carofano, Studio 202, Redondo Beach, CA
- 1999 Present Art VII, Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 1999 First Anniversary, Gallery 215, Santa Ana, CA
- 1999 Ray Carofano, Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 1999 New Definitions in Photography, Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, OR
- 1998 Ray Carofano, Patricia Owens Gallery, Montecito, CA
- 1998 Tales of Los Angeles, Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 1997 Ray Carofano, Photo Americas, Tulsa, OK
- 1997 Images of Emilio, Studio 202, Redondo Beach, CA
- 1997 New Voices, Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, OR
- 1997 Ray Carofano, Tulsa Performing Arts Gallery, Tulsa, OK
- 1997 New Acquisitions, Photographs Do Not Bend, Dallas, TX
- 1997 Nature Redux, Harris Art Gallery, La Verne, CA
- 1997 Ray Carofano, M.A. Doran Gallery, Tulsa, OK
- 1996 Ray Carofano, Photo Metro Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- 1996 Ray Carofano, Channing Peak Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
- 1996 Ray Carofano, Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, OR
- 1995 Ray Carofano, G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Santa Monica, CA