30 Dec Artist Spotlights: Ray Tigerman

Ray Tigerman’s wide-ranging creativity makes him a sort of Renaissance man of the West. Primarily, he’s an artist creating brilliantly colored, richly textured, boldly abstracted acrylic on canvas portraits of Native Americans, like the recent Truth Speaker. But he’s also a rock and country singer-guitarist who has toured before and desires to perform again soon. Additionally, he’s making his debut as a published author, with a coffee table book featuring his paintings. And his fiction debut, the mystical thriller A Knight on Wolf Island, will be released in bookstores this June.

“I spend about 12 hours a day, seven days a week, in my studio next to my house in Tubac, Arizona,” Tigerman says. “I have my easel, paints, and palette knives, a wall full of my guitars, and my writing desk. There’s also a TV; every once in a while, I’ll sit down and detox a bit from all the work.”

Truth Speaker | Acrylic on Canvas | 48 x 36 inches

Tigerman has always had a lot going on. Growing up in northern Nevada, he recalls, “When my brother and I weren’t in school, or baling hay and caring for the horses, we’d play cowboys and Indians with our friends from the Washoe and Paiute tribes. They always wanted to be the cowboys, and I would insist on being an Indian.” He came to that role legitimately, thanks to a Choctaw great-great-grandmother.

In school, he says, “I was always that kid everyone in the class would come to with their binders and say, ‘Draw me a unicorn,’ or ‘Draw me a wolf.’” Around the fifth or sixth grade, he won an award for a watercolor of a mysterious figure emerging from the mist, which went on display in the hallway and was promptly stolen. Rather than being upset, Tigerman remembers thinking how cool it was that someone considered his art good enough to steal.

After high school, he briefly studied art before switching to business at the University of Nevada, Reno, then hit the road with a country cover band. Tigerman later earned a BFA in design from Watkins College of Art in Nashville. Staying in Music City, he opened two locations of a business that supplied framed art for hotel and office developments. “And when the 2008 recession hit and my artists had to find other jobs, I ended up painting the art myself to fulfill the contracts.” He realized he preferred that part of the work and soon switched to being a full-time fine artist.

Fire Spirit | Bronze | Edition of 95 | 26 x 12 x 3 inches

Since then, Tigerman has developed his distinctive, vibrant style, with many works made up of 20 to 30 layers of paint, glaze, and sometimes copper or gold leaf, then varnished multiple times. The end result can appear almost three-dimensional. So, it’s no surprise that he has recently started exploring limited-edition bronzes. “I’m enjoying learning yet another way to communicate.”

Ray Tigerman is currently working and displaying his paintings at the Celebration of Fine Art in Scottsdale, Arizona, through March 29. He is represented by Victory Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Madaras Gallery in Tucson, Arizona; Goldenstein Gallery in Sedona, Arizona; The Signature Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona; Azadi Fine Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Telluride, Colorado; Vickers Collection in Aspen and Vail, Colorado; and Blue Rain Gallery in Durango, Colorado.

Based in Marin County, California, Norman Kolpas is the author of more than 40 books and hundreds of articles. He also teaches nonfiction writing in The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.