Ori Raz was born in Hazor airbase to Shlomo, a fighter pilot in the Air Force and an aerospace engineer and Nesia, a theatre director and drama teacher.  He spent his childhood at the Ramat David airbase and later moved with his family to Raanana.

He began creating from a young age. Side by side with doing odd jobs such as delivering newspapers, being a guide at summer camps and carrying out some agricultural work, he studied painting and sculpting privately throughout his childhood.  In addition, he studied fencing professionally, completed fencing instructors’ course in the Wingate Sports Institute and even reached fourth place in the national fencing championship for cadets in 1987.

He joined the army in 1990 and served as a military photographer during the first Intifada.  As a result of events to which he was exposed, he was discharged from service and was acknowledged as a post-traumatic IDF disabled veteran.  During his service, he was awarded a creative scholarship for a young artist by the ZOA House organization.  After his discharge, he started taking acting classes at the Nisan Nativ studio in Tel Aviv

In 1994, he published his poetry book, “To See Beyond The Light”, by the Eqed publishing house and in 1995, began attending art studies at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design as an extra-curricular student.  During these years, he began to deal with illustrating, and studied computerized graphics.  He illustrated poetry books as well as a variety of book covers.

In 2000, he published a prose book, “Brave Blue Mother” by Yediot Aharonot publishers.  Later in the course of that decade, he began to deal with music, video art and conceptual installations.  Throughout the years, Ori exhibited in over forty group exhibitions and sixteen solo exhibitions.  In addition, he was awarded two young artist scholarships, one from the ZOA House and the other from the German Embassy in Israel.

In 2002, together with the musician Yuval Havkin, he produced and released a musical album titled “Broken Dream”. Two years later, he released another album, titled “I Saw a Hawk Praying on a Dove.”  During these years, he began introducing his work in solo and group exhibitions in Israel and abroad.

In 2008, he produced a third album titled “Ori Raz – the Sound of the Periphery” and in 2012, in conjunction with a soundman Orpaz Agronov, the composer Gali Sagi and the composer and performer Alon Hillel, he produced a musical double album by the name, “ A Smile  out of Crying.

During the last years of his life, he lived in the Florentine Quarter in Tel Aviv, where he worked and continued creating.  His last series were “Time Capsules”, works cast into Perspex (acrylic glass), as well as a series of 14 giant paintings titled “Human Condition”, dealing with human evil and the growing indifference towards it, something he encountered, and considered an ominous warning to the world, indicating the direction he was heading.

After he finished painting this series, Raz wrote, “This is my testament” and took his own life.”