stuff laying around. It's all part of my life and work."

Pop odes to lost love, saucy vixens, dangerous weaponry, cupcakes and candy, kittens and cougars, beer cans and even the Transamerica Pyramid explode from Gray's work, scattered throughout his studio and ready for transport to his first solo show, "Ill Romantic." His patterned brand of eye candy dares to dip into a kind of ecstatic American dream - or nightmare - of pop, porn and overwhelming consumption, fed by engorged veins of highly loaded imagery.

Inspired by his grandfather, who worked with spray paint as a graphic designer, Gray began stenciling in earnest as a San Jose 12-year-old embellishing the grip tape on his skateboard. "I didn't realize it was a serious art practice till I got into collegereally," he says. He graduated in May with his MFA in painting at the Art Institute, where instructors such as Dewey Crumpler and Mark Van Proyen gave him the confidence to make his work.

"I don't make paintings like anybody else at school," Gray says matter-of-factly. "Not that I was an outcast, but it was hard for people to even critique it at times because they're not used to seeing spray-paint art, or what could be considered lowbrow, in graduate school."

Considering how intertwined Gray's personal life and his practice are, it's not surprising that he draws from universal images he connects with, or sources close to home - be it a Dolores Park light post that he photographed or a recent spate of heartbreak. "I feel like each painting