Born as Michael Patterson on September 11, 1956, on a United States Army base in Germany, and he was raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He moved to San Francisco in 1981, to attend San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) where he graduated. Early in his career he worked as a digital graphic designer for nightclubs and for music shows. He designed and performed with The Residents, as well as designed for David Bowie, among others.
He changed his name to Rex Ray in order to start anew and be free of his past.
By the early 1990s he started a professional fine art practice. Ray had been one of the first artists to use Mac computer-based technology to create his art. He had two units in the Allied Box Factory in the Mission District in San Francisco, one was his living space and the other was his art studio. He referred to his artwork "paintings" even though they were often collage-based and lacked any traditional painting techniques.

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