MACHAS

Summer is a sip away: Ray Oranges for Starbucks

Machas Artist Ray Oranges is well known for his minimal and colourful style and ability to create vibrant, evocative artworks that strike with their simplicity yet layered multiplicity of perception.

For Starbucks’ in-store campaign, he was challenged to illustrate relaxing outdoor coffee breaks to promote the brand’s Coffee At Home product range.

Ray created three artworks depicting delightful holiday moments with warm tones inspired by summertime sunsets. He used colour, shape and gradients to create depth and dynamism while keeping essential compositions.

“The agency gave me a lot of freedom to create the artworks,” says Ray,  “and I wanted to capture that feeling of warmth and enjoyment that we associate with summertime.”

“I’ve decided to liberate the compositions from the excessive realism of detailings and to allow the viewer to fill in the image with their own experience. If you look at the woman on the floating chair, she could be in a lake, in a swimming pool, in the sea - it could be all the above and more. The imagination of the viewer is free to complete the landscape with their memories, taste, aspirations. And that generates an emotional response.”

“My favourite image is the hammock one. I love how the lady looks suspended in space, and how the lines of the hammock become shades of light as they extend into the composition, creating a pleasant tension with her surroundings.”
 
See more of Ray’s work here.