Ray L. Burggraf (born 1938) is an artist, color theorist, and Emeritus Professor of Fine Arts at Florida State University.

[2] According to Roald Nasgaard, Burggraf's paintings exhibit "visual excitation...pulsating patterns, vibrating after-images, weird illusionistic spaces, multifocal opticality, executed with knife-edge precision...crisp and elegant and radiant with light."

From a historical perspective, Burggraf's work is "nature evocative...reach[ing] back to the modernist landscape tradition of the Impressionists and of Neo-impressionists like Seurat, who, in the late-nineteenth century immersed themselves in the color theories of Chevreul and Rood" (Roald Nasgaard; former Chief Curator, Art Gallery of Ontario, 2006).

[11][12][13][14] Ray Burggraf's work demonstrates an extreme attention to technique, and has brought the role of environmentally-focused artwork to the forefront of debate among scholars (as reviewed by Kang, J.

[16][17]In a statement published in 2010, Burggraf wrote that his observations regarding the industrialization of his hometown farming community served as the impetus for his drive to become an artist.

[3] Eventually Burggraf decided to create and paint full-time, and quit his job in order to enroll in the Cleveland Institute of Art.

[17][18] Burggraf graduated from UC Berkeley in 1970, and immediately moved to Tallahassee, FL to join the faculty at Florida State University.

The panels allow Burggraf to add the dimension of time: moments in a day or week, and changes in light as it reveals or obscures land or seascapes.