Bio
R.A. Buys was born and raised in California. He moved to Indianapolis in the mid-90s. After a life changing moment where he died for 3 minutes following a suicide attempt in 2006, he developed a new appreciation for life that led him to go back to school. He chose to study Fine Art which stemmed from a longtime passion for art and being creative.
He earned his Associate Degree of General Fine Art at Ivy Tech Community College. Currently he is between semesters pursuing a Fine Art Degree in Sculpture at Herron School of Art and Design (IUPUI).
He loves to work with mixed media and found objects and is taking advantage of school to learn the basics of a variety of different mediums.
Currently he mainly chooses marking pens, paint pens, and oil paint where he has been working on a series of abstract and representational portraits, he calls his Midnight Therapy Series. Overall through painting, photography, performance art, video documentation and mixed media he is trying to show his own particular view of the world.
On the side, he is learning from fellow artist Steve Redman, the process of art restoration and also volunteers’ his time with Regeneration Indy, an independent program that teaches art to youth.
Artist Statement
R.A. Buys' current concentration is on more commercially/public friendly paintings and drawings he calls “Midnight Therapy”, which is what he shows regularly throughout the year.
Years ago, he moved into his current house and he had no connection to internet, smart phone, or cable. He started drawing these stream of conscience faces in the late hours of the night, that have evolved over the years and continue to change. While a few of them are actual portraits of existing people, most of them are abstract and void of any recognizable features of a real person.
He tries to strip away gender, sex, age, race or any other feature that we tend to intentionally or accidentally judge others on. Matter of fact he likes to look at his drawings as having the skin peeled back and them showing the colors, textures, and patterns that make up a person on the inside. Often, they come across alien.
People say that they see African, Aztec, Polynesian and Celtic influences among others in his art; although this is all accidental as he relies on the moment to dictate what the patterns and images will end up looking like.
He works in very basic mediums. Oil paint, paint pens, and marking pens. Usually on wood but sometimes canvas, whichever is more available at the moment. He tries to re-purpose old frames or makes basic 60s style student lattice frames to add a little character to the finished product.