Born in Vienna in 1937,[1] Jaray grew up in rural Worcestershire, England, where her parents emigrated in 1938 after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany made it unsafe for people of Jewish descent to live there.

[3] With a guaranteed place at the Slade she took time out to travel to Paris where she stayed at no.16 Rue des Cannettes in the hotel run by Marcel Proust's former housekeeper, Céleste Albaret.

In Paris Jaray made several formative relationships including with fellow hotel guest Valli Myers and the Slovenian painter Zoran Mušič.

[5] The impact of Renaissance architectural spaces Jaray encountered on her travels in Italy were formative for the development of her distinctive technique.

Writing on Jaray's paintings of the 60s Jasia Reichardt said they could be called '"ceiling geography" because they suggest views of an interior seen from below...

The patterns she creates evoke spatial ambiguities and shifting structures which work on the viewer's perceptions in subtle ways.

According to the critic Terry Pitts, her work ‘sense(s) the way in which history of decoration and patterning is embedded with elemental human experiences and impulses’.

A selection of Jaray's essays and reflections on art and life were collected in Painting: Mysteries & Confessions published in 2010 by Lenz Books.

In 1995 Jaray was made Honorary Fellow of the RIBA (Royal Institute for British Architects) for her contribution to urban design.