Chris Gray is a Maine-based oil painter and uilleann piper whose work explores memory and tradition. Gray received his MFA from Maine College of Art & Design, with previous degrees in Art and Music from Bowdoin College (BA in Studio Art and Music) and University College Cork (MA in Ethnomusicology with a Diploma in Irish Music). Gray’s paintings are heavily influenced by his background in Traditional Irish Music and his personal experience of ulnar neuropathy. In 2018, bilateral nerve damage required Gray to take a step back from the music, and inspired a significant shift in his studio practice. He began to seriously explore memory as it relates to artistic and musical traditions, looking at the way in the which the performative act of painting can revive, reify, and transform memory in a manner that parallels revivals of traditional music.
Chris Gray is a member of the Coastal Fine Arts Alliance of Maine, and he was the 2019 recipient of the Bangor Art Society’s Open Juried Show award for First Place in Oil Painting. Gray’s work has been featured in numerous group and solo shows along the coast of Maine, including shows at the Shaw Gallery, the Salty Dog Gallery, and the Cornerstone Gallery on Mount Desert Island.