World of
Ralph
Collages & Prints
- Wall Works
About Ralph Pugay
Ralph Pugay works across painting, drawing, and other media to build nonlinear worlds shaped by humor, contradiction, and the layered noise of contemporary culture. These works often unfold like loose fables or open-ended situations, where everyday absurdities, digital leftovers, and emotional undercurrents gather without insisting on resolution. Figures, animals, and gestures appear in shifting arrangements, informed by ways of being together that are adaptive, relational, and slightly off-balance, sometimes brushing up against narrative, other times simply sharing space. Humor moves quietly through the work, acting less as a punchline than as a way of staying close to tenderness, friction, and surprise.
Ralph Pugay (b. 1983, Cavite, Philippines; lives and works in Portland, OR) holds a BA and MFA in Contemporary Art Practice from Portland State University. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at venues including Adams & Ollman (Portland, OR), Cristin Tierney (New York, NY), AA|LA (Los Angeles, CA), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA), Hallie Ford Museum of Art (Salem, OR), Marinaro (New York, NY), Chez Max Y Dorothea (Los Angeles, CA), Hunter College Art Galleries (New York, NY), and Ditch Projects (Eugene, OR).
He has participated in residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE), the Rauschenberg Residency (Captiva, FL), the Joan Mitchell Center (New Orleans, LA), Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts (Pendleton, OR), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Madison, ME), and has received awards including the Betty Bowen Award, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award, and an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship.
IG: @ralphpugay
Curriculum Vitae
Press
PDX Monthly
Ralph Pugay is Troubling Paradise
Matthew Trueherz
November 13, 2025
OPB Oregon Art Beat
Ralph Pugay’s paintings make us laugh but in a good way
Eric Slade
January 5, 2025
Oregon Arts Watch
Empathy and Eros: Ralph Pugay’s ‘The Longest Journey’
Lucy Cotter
December 11, 2023
Art in America Online
Dear Bruce: A Letter from a Fan
Sean J Patrick Carney
January 4, 2019
New American Paintings Blog
Rothkos in Space and Paintings of Dumpsters: The Absurd Worlds of Ralph Pugay
Erin Langner
December 17, 2014