Tasty, Weird Public Art with Ray Chiulli
Ray Chiulli and his visiting artist wall at The Gallery, April 2026
April’s visiting artist, Ray Chiulli, or perhaps better known as @ratchili, has one of the most unique displays of work we’ve yet hosted up at The Gallery. On the wall, these slightly warped scenes with illustrated characters seem static, but scan the QR code next to each one and experience them come to life in a totally different and delightful way.
Ray’s project entitled Creature County was funded by a GVCA Independent Artist Grant. The grant money helped him purchase a 360° panoramic camera and a new digital illustration setup, which he then used to create these 8 public interactive works of art around Livingston County.
The project was inspired in part by a class he took at the Pratt Institute, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2D Animation. “I took this class called After the Internet. It was all about subverting digital platforms by using them for their unintended purposes. One of the things we did was take one of those virtual housing tour websites and basically make it into a virtual art gallery. This was during COVID so we were all at home…some people put themselves in multiple places, some people did different color grading. What I did was draw on top of it. And it stuck with me…so I was like, what if I used that same medium as an opportunity to get public art into spaces that would otherwise be pretty inaccessible to public art?”
Ray gave me a tour of each scene and the process of bringing this project to life. Let’s get into it!
Location 1 /// GENESEO
The Gallery in the Valley,
corner of Main and Center St.
The Gallery’s outdoor creature infestation was the first one Ray completed. “That was the dry run, just going for it and trying it out. It was such a familiar space that it would be easier to play around and figure things out. And you guys already knew what the idea was, so it wasn't going to be hard to pitch. If I had at least one example, I could show other businesses and they'd understand more what I was trying to do.”
Ray made sure to capture this corner on a summer day when the Farmer’s Market was happening, and went with an aquatic creature theme. I’m an especially big fan of the trail of water running down the stairs and how you can’t really find the seam where the water peels away from the photo and becomes a cartoon.
Months ago at a casual meet-up of area creatives at The Gallery, Ray showed us an early version of this same concept where he’d injected some illustrations straight into a Google Maps scene. He was trying to figure out what to pitch for his GVCA grant application at the time, and we all were kind of like “UM, RAY, THIS, DO THIS FOR YOUR PROJECT!” One of my most favorite things about this space is when these casual conversations lead to new ideas and new art.
Location 2 /// LAKEVILLE
Original Stump Blower Ciderworks
Ray knew exactly who to approach next. “I've been connected to the owners of OSB for so long that they just trusted I was going to do something cool.”
Ray told me he’s known the founders of OSB since he was sixteen or so, when they used to surf on Conesus Lake with his mom and stepdad. I’m sorry, did you know that you could surf on Conesus Lake? I sure didn’t.
“I wanted to include things related to the business, so I put little apples trying to do activities, had characters drinking the drinks. And part of the reason I picked the snail is that they also do snail races.”
Okay, wait, WHAT? SNAIL RACES?!?? It’s true, I just looked into it, the most recent snail race was in January at their Buffalo location.
Location 3 /// CALEDONIA
Caledonia Library
“When I checked out the Caledonia library, they had this little side room that is just so cozy — it feels like you're almost in a completely different building. Surrounded by bookshelves on all sides. I was like, this is a perfect spot for an interesting photo,” Ray says of his exploration into the library to choose a scene.
My favorite part of this scene is the gooey monster holding up a book that says “How To Be Less Gooey.” Poor guy, fighting against his very nature. Ray’s scenes all have similarly silly bits hiding for you to find.
The yellow and purple creatures in the Caledonia Library, Ray says, are slightly inspired by Where The Wild Things Are, a classic bit of creature-centric children’s literature, but the other slime blobs and creatures just happened while he was doodling.
“There are these weird little four-legged guys that are ripping up and eating the books. I really enjoyed making those, but I was also terrified the library staff would be like, ‘This is going to encourage people to destroy our books.’ But they loved it.”
Location 4 /// MT. MORRIS
Suzea’s Gluten Free Bakery & Cafe
Ray draws directly onto flattened versions of the 360° photos to make these scenes. Not until he uploads them into the virtual reality rendering environment does he see how each scene really appears. I asked him about the trial and error there: was there ever a moment where he drew something in 2d that got strangely distorted in the 3d environment? This led us to Suzea’s Gluten Free Bakery & Cafe in Mt. Morris, naturally.
“There's a big cloud guy staring directly into your soul. Where I placed him, I had the camera sitting in a chair, so he's seated in the same chair. In order to make him that close, when you look down you see his legs, and you're basically sitting on his lap. That was really difficult to pull off because part of him would wrap around one side of the image and come out the other side. It took a lot of manipulation.”
To illustrate these scenes, Ray uses Clip Studio Paint. “It's basically the digital artist's better version of Photoshop. It's worse at photo manipulation but much better for illustration. A lot of people who draw in Photoshop and don't need the photo tools will switch to Clip Studio and it's like they're breathing fresh air for the first time.” (Hello, Clip Studio Paint if you’re reading this, do you want to hire a spokesperson? We know just the guy!)
Ray notes that Suzea, at the bakery, was an enthusiastic collaborator on his project. “She basically didn’t even look at the example images, she was just immediately like, go for it! She was excited by everything I was saying about it being a collaborative community art project.”
Thank you, Suzea, for whole-heartedly supporting our local artists! *hat tip*
Location 5 /// GENESEO
Sunrise Bouldering
“One of my favorite places in Geneseo is Cosmic Charlie's Cafe, and I'm acquainted with Jake and Piper who run it, but attached to that same business is the rock climbing gym, Sunrise Bouldering." To honor Cosmic, the creatures in the gym appear to have first stopped there for coffee.
We discussed the challenges of reverse engineering climbing creatures to the wall, and making them look like they’re realistically interacting with the climbing holds: “The hardest part was sort of making the characters proportional in such a way that they could realistically look like they're rock climbing. because like I have to find the rocks that you could put hands and feet on.”
The second part of this, once he figured out the structure and proportions of the creatures, was to go in afterwards with a dark watercolor brush and add shadows where the creatures would be coming in contact with elements of the photo.
My favorite creature of the whole project happens to be the little tired disassociating star on the bench, just behind the buff coffee cup.
Location 6 /// AVON
Avon Trading Post
Ray’s personal favorite. “I think I probably had the most fun doing this one because it's such an odd and cluttered space. Funnily enough, when I went to get a picture of the space, I had shown up the hour it reopened after being closed for years…and then when I showed up, the new owner was like, I'm not ready for you to photograph but he was really cool and understanding and he was down with the idea that I pitched him, and told me to come back.”
Ray returned a couple weeks later and photographed one of the back rooms. The scene was full of interesting weird antiques, different glasses and drinkware, things hanging from the ceiling, and empty spots on shelves that made perfect little nooks and crannies to hide his creatures in.
“I think my favorite creature design to come out of it came from this one. I'm really happy with the orange squid guys,” Ray says of the orange octopus-looking dudes with the stems and leaves atop their noggins. He found their tentacles fun to intertwine with the objects in the photo, blurring the line between cartoon and photo.
“And then, this is completely unrelated to the actual piece itself, but I was watching some really cozy episodes of classic Simpsons while I was working on this one. So I was just like, I don't know, I just had a really great time doing this one.”
There’s something to be said for art that can transport you back to a good feeling you had while you were making it.
Location 7 /// DANSVILLE
Spindle & Knots
Ray made a point to mention that all of the business owners that he approached were very open to him using their space for his digital murals. The folks at Spindle & Knots were especially kind. Ray had never been there before and was happy to discover a new local business: “They've also got a lot more than just yarn in there — candles, art tutorial books, really cool stuff. Very creatively inclined space.”
This scene was a challenge in a couple of different ways. “I really made almost all of the characters very related to the business itself and how it operated — with the exception of the duck. This was definitely more challenging for me, drawing the characters and making them look yarn-y. I don't draw yarn very often so I had to look up references on how people draw yarn.”
And then, to get a good vantage point for this shot, Ray set the camera on the ground and moved products and objects in the store around it to give his creatures items to interact with. He felt weird doing that, but sometimes to make great art, you have to risk looking a bit silly in the process. It was worth the discomfort, Ray.
Location 8 /// GENESEO
Strange Design Public House
“Strange Design was really fun. In the creature ecosystem you've got your Bigfoots, your Loch Ness monsters, and then there are aliens in their own category. I hadn't done anything with aliens yet, and I figure a space called Strange Design was kind of the right spot for some aliens.”
The Strange Design scene is the hero image for Ray’s show, and the folks at Strange are good friends to The Gallery. We just love them. Also huge supporters of music and arts in the area. They host drum circles and yoga classes and puzzle competitions. Good, good people. I would imagine that if aliens actually visited Earth, they’d be immediately drawn to Strange Design.
“The classic gray alien design…is this blank canvas of emotion. They're not expressing anything, so you can put them in very silly situations and just have it work. I put one behind the bar with a hat that says "Earth's Best Bartender" and you're just like, alright, sure man.”
Would you ever want to create more of these scenes in the future? Could a business or organization hire you to do this for them?
“Yeah, I'd be interested. We'd have to maybe discuss some details.” Y’all, Ray is very fun to discuss details with, I can tell you firsthand.
What do you hope people take away from your art?
“That art can be fun and accessible and you can have fun interacting with it. I think a lot of people get in their heads that art needs to be sophisticated, or untouchable — that it needs a level of seriousness to really be art, because if anything could be perceived as low brow or silly, then it's not worthy of the same critical attention…I just hope that other people will see that and feel inspired, or even just connected — and maybe share their own things that are kind of in a similar vein. Because art can be fun. It can be silly. And it can still say something or do something you've never seen before. You can still do a lot with it, even if it's not the most serious.”
If you’ve made it this far, wowza, you’re a real one. Thanks for taking the time to learn a bit about the artwork of Ray Chiulli aka @ratchili. You can interact with these scenes all month at The Gallery, and can also find the QR codes at each of the creature-infested locations above.
-Joanna @ The Gallery