1. Ray Abeyta's paintings are a hybrid of historical and contemporary Latino subject matter in the Cuzco School style of Madonna painting, lowrider culture, New Mexican traditional retablo painting, and representations of the colonialist encounters between Europeans and Mesoamericans.
Ray Abeyta was raised in the lowrider culture of Northern New Mexico.
Ray Abeyta has been described as a "precocious child who drew constantly," and credited his father for providing him with the encouragement to draw as a means of communication starting at a young age.
Ray Abeyta received a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the University of New Mexico in 1982.
Ray Abeyta moved from New Mexico to the East Village of New York city in 1986.
Ray Abeyta was a classic car and vintage motorcycle enthusiast, and owned and restored a 1956 Ford F100 pickup truck and a 1968 Triumph motorcycle.
Ray Abeyta was the co-owner of Works Engineering, a vintage motorcycle repair, machining and detailing shop in Brooklyn.
Throuout his life, Ray Abeyta remained close to his New Mexican roots, its history and culture.
The iconography of Ray Abeyta's paintings has been described as a mixture of "colonial, baroque, indigenous and pop culture" references.
Ray Abeyta's work was the subject of numerous one person exhibitions, including major exhibitions at the Museum of New Mexico, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum.
Ray Abeyta's work is held in the permanent collections of these institutions.
Ray Abeyta's work was included in the exhibition, Painting the Divine: Images of Mary in the New World at the New Mexico History Museum.
Ray Abeyta was influenced by Spanish Baroque painting, Mexican retablo and ex voto paintings as well as other vernacular visual sources such as codexes, maps and nautical charts.
Ray Abeyta's work has been included in numerous exhibitions, including the San Francisco Mexican Museum, the Rotunda Gallery among others.
Ray Abeyta's paintings are represented by the Owings Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Ray Abeyta has painted Quetzalcoatl with four eyes that resonate with Shiva's three eyes.
Ray Abeyta created many paintings inspired by the mythology of the pre-Columbian era.
Ray Abeyta's 2004 painting, Ofilia Y Lallorona references the La Llorona folklore tale of a mysterious weeping woman dressed in white who appears as a nocturnal wanderer who then disappears into a lake.
Ray Abeyta's work is held in numerous private and public collections including those at the Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico Museum of Art, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum, the New Mexico History Museum, the Mexican Museum among others.
In 1995 and again in 1996, Ray Abeyta received grants from the Art Matters Foundation.
In 2005, Ray Abeyta was awarded a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
Ray Abeyta died in a motorcycle accident at age 58, when he was struck by a truck in Brooklyn, New York.