In the space’s first large solo exhibition, Compound will bring on L.A.-based, feminist-meets-machinist artist and sculptor Fay Ray come Feb. 15. The exhibit—dubbed Puerperal, referring to the six-week process a woman undergoes after pregnancy where her organs return to a nonproductive status—will run through August of this year.
The gallery’s group exhibit, “When the Veil Thins,” ends Feb. 9.



Fay Ray’s Compound exhibition in Long Beach explores the postpartum life of women.
Fay Ray has had quite the stellar year. 2024 marked the artist’s first major solo museum exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tuscon. Called Portals, the exhibition allowed the artist to flex in a multitude of mediums—photography, metal sheeting, kilning, polishing, chain looping…—while showing just how massive, monumental, and moving her work can be.
The Mexican-American artist plays with the vacillation between identities and spaces. Catholicism and mysticism. Her family’s masculine trucking business—a male-dominated field if there was one—and her relation to it—much like her own relation to the art world, which also remains heavily dominated by men, especially when it comes to large-scale sculpture. Between being a woman-as-maker and an artist-as-maker.

Her Puerperal is no exception.
“The intent of this exhibition is to open a dialogue about the period of childbirth that is recognized as the ‘fourth trimester’—or postpartum,” Fay said. “Once you have a child, I believe you are postpartum from that point forward until death. This transition of the subject we rarely if ever see interpreted through art. I want to bring that to the forefront.”

‘When the Veil Thins’—Compound’s first major exhibition—leaves Feb. 9.
When the Veil Thins marked a crucial step forward for Compound. It was the complex’s first major exhibit since its opening and brought on 12 new works that have been curated by artists Tofer Chin and Mari Orkenyi. This is your last chance to see these artists conveying with paint, sculpture, photography, textiles, and film:
- Amir H. Fallah
- Analia Saban
- Aryana Minai
- Jamal Gunn Becker
- Mia Weiner
- Mike Nesbit
- Molly Haynes
- Shaniqwa Jarvis
- Thomas Linder
- Todd Tourso

What is Compound
Compound Long Beach is many, many things: Art exhibition space. Restaurant thanks to The Union. Community hub for everything from wellness seminars to mini-markets. But the thing that people should know first and foremost is that it’s a nonprofit—and with its foot firmly in the ground after a fairly uneven start, they are starting to shine with programming that makes it one of the most unique destinations in the city.
One of the main things about Compound Long Beach—beyond the media blitz that took place when they opened its restaurant space, The Union, headed by Chef Eugene Santiago—is that few people still know little of what, exactly, it is. Is it an art space? Yes. Is it a community center? Yeah. Is it a place to shop? Sure. Is it a restaurant? Yup, that also.
“We are a 501c3 nonprofit—we just want to make that the clearest point of all,” said Silissa Uriarte Smith of Compound Long Beach. “We have not just all kinds of programming but we’re here to bring art and food to folks that don’t get to experience it on certain levels. It’s really about connecting community with contemporary art and food.”
Compound, located at 1395 Coronado Ave., will host an opening reception brunch that is open to the public in celebration of the debut of Fay Ray: Puerperal exhibition on Feb. 15 from 11AM to 2PM. A public walk-through of the exhibition will be held on Feb. 23, from 11AM to 1PM with artist Fay Ray and Compound Executive Director January Parkos Arnall, who will both be on hand to meet and greet guests as well as fo an open conversation.