For years – until a photograph of a murdered child made him quit – Ray Caesar worked in the photo department of the Hospital for Sick Children, documenting injuries and signs of abuse. The bruised muses come back as vengeful huntresses with teeth and tentacles in Caesar’s exquisite paintings… and Precious is not masturbating; she’s pretending to give birth, as artists do. “A Gentle Kind of Cruelty,” Ray Caesar, Jan 22 – Feb 19, Jonathan Levine Gallery, NYC
“The Atlas of Anatomy,” Varnished Digital Ultrachrome on Panel, Image size: 16×20 inches
From now through July 26, you can see new work from artist Ray Caesar on view at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York City: “In the Garden of Moonlight.” Using a 3D modeling program called Maya, Caesar creates strange portals into weird otherworlds: “He has compared working in this software to the experience of lucid dreaming, as in both situations, one has the ability to control and manipulate a simulated reality.” The freakishly detailed digital subjects in his work were partly inspired by the years he spent working as a photographer at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where he lives, and partly by the fact that he was born a dog, according to his bio. And if you happen to have an extra $10,000 to $20,000 lying round, you can buy one.
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