About Me:
To those of you who want to learn more about the artist and person behind the art you’ve come to the right place. If you have a question that is not answered here please check the FAQ page for additional information. Also, if you cannot find the answer to your question you may email me at any time and I hope to get back to you in a timely fashion. If the question is considered Urgent please add that to the mail topic.

“No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.”- Claude Monet


While painting is not my medium of choice, this quote remains fundamental in how I view art and why it is so important in my life. For me art is an insight to a person's mind and their imagination and beliefs. When an artist explains their own work you are getting an intimate look into who they really are, what is important to them and how they choose to express themselves.

Now for a person whose site mascot is a hyper-active, slightly rabid, fluffy chaotic blue WereTiger you might wonder why I would even say such a thing. In reality that creature and others like her are an insight into my imagination, something that is found in very piece of art I have ever created. Imagination in any form, is extremely personal, no one else will ever look at something or create it the same way you do. Your imagination is your individuality in a world of conformity. For an artist this allows one to stand out in their own community.

I was born in 1987 and from an early age I had understanding of what death was. I lost my father not a month after I was born to cancer and was raised by my single mother all my life (with some help from my grandparents). I was also an only child (minus my half brother and half sister who did not live with us) all my life, the closet thing I ever had to a sibling was my friends or family pet. My father was a wonderful self-taught artist and passed on a great deal of his gift to me (for which I am very grateful). I have a few of his drawings and am still amazed by the photographic quality of his work with graphite.

As a young child I was surrounded by fantasy and mythology, my bedtime stories at the ages of two and three where never normal children's stories like the Pokey Little Puppy but rather lengthily novels. My mother would always read me a chapter or two of The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings every night, to which I have committed to memory even to this day. By age seven I was reading them to myself and had discovered The Chronicles of Narnia which remains one of my favorite book series. My interest in fantasy genre art can largely be attributed to these books and others like them.

During my childhood my mother and I moved around a lot as she tried to make a better living for me and struggled to keep a roof over our heads. I was never in any individual school more then a year max until fourth grade. At that point in my life I never imagined the friends I had made when we finally settled down would be so important in my life or be as influential to me as an artist.

In high school, I really had no interest in art outside of it being my hobby and an easy way for me to boost my GPA. I focused heavily on my science classes, thanking all the biology and anatomy classes I could, given at the time I wanted to study Marine Biology and work with sharks, that was supposed to be for the rest of my life. In my senior year I lost one my closest friends, whom I had known most of my life, in a car accident. I was devastated by the sudden death and it is something I have still not officially accepted or gotten over. Oddly enough it was that very friend that always supported my hobby, saying that I was missing my ‘true’ calling, that I could have been a lot better.

During my first year of college I did enjoy the science classes and learning about my chosen field however the death of my close friend weighed heavily on my mind and her words to me. I desperately needed an outlet and turned to something that had always been in the back of my mind, art. It allowed me to struggle and work through my problems and clear my mind, it’s the best theory I’ve ever found. After taking my first college art class I realized what I had been missing in my life, I had discovered what I was truly passionate about. From late 2006 I started to get serious about my art which was a drastic change from it just being something I did to pass the time.

My use of nature as a subject matter however, was always something that I carried throughout my life. I love the outdoors and enjoy spending time with animals, normally more so then people. To me an animal is a living work of art and should be respected as such. The Tiger had always been one animal that fascinated me but it did not become a main stable in my work until I started to pick up photography in my sophomore year of high school. I had visited a zoo for a project and wanted to get black and white pictures of some of the big cats there. I had wandered behind the group I had went with and was a little disappointed that the Tiger was on the other side of his enclosure and my zoom lens wasn’t good enough to capture something from that distance. Noticing I had used up my role of film anyway, I crouched down to change the roll onto to look back up and notice that the cat had moved and was now staring at me eye level. It was a rather humbling experience even with the glass between us. Given at this point my friends had come back and wondered what was taking me so long and watched the cat and myself have a mini staring contest. Thankfully the Tiger didn’t move and I was able to get some very nice shots of him. However that experience and locking eyes with the animal is something that has stayed with me to this day.

All that said, it still doesn’t really explain my choice in a pen name for my art. While I don’t have a problem at all with my real name, professionally I want to keep my art life and my private life, separate. The name Rayen derives from someone calling me Raven most of my life in response to a piece of artwork I had drawn for them. I didn’t really want to be called a bird but liked the idea that my art could be a part of me on a deeper level. As I grew older Raven became Rayen, the one letter difference made a big deal to me and my art. Rayen also means flower, something I found out later; with my love of nature it only solidified the idea in my mind that this seemed right.

That being said, where does Desari come from? That part of my name also derives from personal interests. The Ancient World and the Roman Empire have always been something I liked to learn about. In school and college, I have about five or so years of studying Latin under my belt and can read it rather well. Desari comes from the Latin word Desiderāta meaning desired. I wanted something historical to my pen name and that blended smoothly with the first part of the name I had chosen. Both of which are highly personal to me.

How do you pronounce the name?
This is something I am often asked, people often think they have insulted me when they do not pronounce it correctly but this is not the case.
Rayen Desari is pronounced [Ray-en Des-ur-ay]