There is a moment in every person’s life when a calling reveals itself — not with noise or fanfare, but with a quiet certainty. For me, that moment came not once, but twice.
The first time, I was a young boy, discovering the joy of drawing, unaware that the simple movement of pencil on paper would leave an indelible mark on my soul. The second time was later, as a seasoned engineer, when I realised that painting had quietly accompanied me through the most intense years of my professional life, anchoring me with balance, purpose, and beauty. Art was not an escape. It was my companion, my spark — the stimulus that kept my mind alert and my creativity flowing even during the most demanding periods of my career.
I’m Ray Piscopo — a professional engineer by qualification, but an artist by nature. As I sit to write this, it feels like the right time to reflect. Not just for myself, but for those who have followed my work over the years, and for those who may just be discovering it now. Through this blog, I want to take you on a journey — my journey — through the formative episodes, the turning points, and the quiet decisions that made me who I am today: a man shaped by discipline, curiosity, and emotion.
This is not just about paintings or exhibitions. It’s about how art became my compass. How it evolved with me — from a quiet pastime to a lifelong passion, then into a professional calling that continues to energize my days, even in retirement from my engineering profession.
In the coming posts, I will share how I began painting, how I kept it alive during my years as an engineer, and how, once I stepped away from my career, art fully took over — not just my time, but also my mission. A mission to share the stories, emotions, and messages that dwell beneath the layers of paint on each canvas.
I’ve participated in countless exhibitions, both in Malta and abroad. I’ve curated and organised shows in collaboration with others, including a series of six exhibitions across major Maltese hotels as part of an artist-in-residence initiative. I was also involved in curating 26 exhibitions and took part in the Healing Arts Committee under Malta’s Ministry of Health — a project that saw the installation of 600 works of art across public spaces in Mater Dei Hospital. It was a beautiful testament to art’s power to soothe and uplift.
Recently, I invited renowned Italian art critic and curator Marta Lock to study and review my entire body of work. She went through hundreds of paintings, sketches, and drawings, categorising them into 22 thematic chapters and writing insightful critical essays for each. Her voice brought new dimension and structure to what had been, for years, a natural outpouring of emotion and technique from my studio.
All these milestones — the exhibitions, the reviews, the chapters of my artistic growth — are now being gathered into a new book I’m currently preparing. It will include over 600 paintings I’ve created over the past 25 years. A labor of love, yes — but also a visual and narrative record of my life’s journey.
This is just the beginning of what I hope will be a meaningful conversation between me and you, the reader. I invite you to join me in this unfolding story.
Thank you for walking with me.
