Ray was a dreamer. He only wanted to paint, to create, And that is exactly what he has managed to achieve in 40 years of feverish career.

I visited his studio at Swieqi, St Julians, a cavernous interior packed with works. The artistic disorder explicitly underlines his creative urge.

At the far end of the studio, hidden from the eyes of those who regard modern art with contempt, are fabulous works: the result of his fantastic imagination. The bulk is constructions made from found objects. The sources of his inspiration are unavoidably Picasso and Duchamp. Probably he regards both artists as seminal and approaches their work with reverence and awe. The charred trunk and branches of a tree lie like a prehistoric silurian monster stretched clinically on stainless steel plates. The effect is that of a primordial fossil. Plague is a fleeting female figure, almost baroque in quality, locked behind bars. It fills the spectator with compassion as she gestures in vain to escape the quarantine of her isolation. The handlebar of a bicycle is transformed into a giant beetle. Large nails become the unkempt bristles of an unshaven bearded Prophet. A hollow profile of a tragic head exposes the grotesque, distorted and decadent world of a surreal mind.

A series of Screams, possibilities on a theme, line the walls three metres high. Painted on board, an open, elongated mouth becomes a thretening vagina. The scream is one of pain, incomprehension, neglect, emargination or complete rejection - the horror of being left out and forgotten. Life becomes a threat as in Ensor and Munch, yet Ray turns the angst of graphic line into an ostentatious spalsh of liquefied paint. The artist transforms defeat into victory; he exorcises fear and turns the tension of isolation into resolution. With no formal artistic training Ray became obsessed by Michelangelos Last Judgement. He refers to Leonardo as stupor mundi. His draughtsmanship enables Ray to imitate the old masters effortlessly. His romantic character chose the best. Then he suddenly veered to Surreal art for inspiration, found his true self and changed again to Expressionism. Then followed a long incubating period, a decade of serious application in experimental forms of modern art.

This duality, his love for the old masters and his obsession with modern art, demonstrates the versatility, inherent talents, insecurity and indecision of the profound explorer. His dribbling of paint becomes frenetic. In a trance he works like one possessed and turns colour into expression - dynamic, forceful, energetic. The bold colours are his direct emotions projected into a language of frenzy. This gestural language is a result of Rays personal bravura and an emulation of Pollacks achievement.

Large figures made of wood and resin dangle like puppets on a string revolving to the touch. These apparitions are Pitres nearest attempt at kinetic art. The wide spectrum of materials used is quite surprising. In 1981 he was commissioned to decorate the dome of the parish church of Msida to finish the cycle of paintings started by his uncle Anton Inglott and Emvin Cremona. He also designed five sets of postage stamps.

(Source: MALTA This Month, Oct. 97 Advantage Press Ltd, Regency House, Republic Street, Valletta, Malta).