Raymond Saunders

Saunders lives and works primarily in Oakland, California. Saunders is a former professor emeritus of Painting at California College of the Arts, Oakland, and professor emeritus at California State University, East Bay.

Saunders works in a large variety of media, but is mainly known for work that encompasses painting and transversal media juxtaposition, sometimes bordering on the sculptural but always retaining the relation to the flat wall key to modernism in painting. Saunders' painting is expressive, and often incorporates collage (mostly small bits of printed paper found in everyday life), chalked words (sometimes crossed out), and other elements that add references and texture without breaking the strong abstract compositional structure.

In 1967, Saunders declared "black is a color." Throughout his career Saunders has questioned the premise that black artists produce something that should be uniquely identified as "black art." In his own work, he looked to separate his practice from the restrictions of identity-driven art: "I am an artist. I do not believe that art work should be limited or categorized by one's racial background."