Raya Simpao (b. 2003) is a painter whose practice is grounded in her upbringing in the Philippines. She is currently completing her BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. Storytelling and painting are synonymous to her. She works figuratively, interested in portraying both the individual and collective. Currently, Raya has been exploring community responses to tragedy and the ways that healing takes place amidst order. Her home country and its systems operate around conservatism and religion. Raya is deeply curious about what is left behind of events that are so unpleasant to confront and difficult to explain. She questions what part rituals, traditions, and norms play in processing pain and shaping desire. She works to capture the complexities within the re-orientation of the self as we make sense of the world and the love and sensitivity embedded in it all.