art of the week #3

Pecker, Ray Caesar

Ray Caesar, In the Garden of Moonlight
Jonathon LeVine Gallery
June 28 - July 26, 2008

Well... This is actually a past exhibition but the work was so haunting I had to make it this week's art of the week. In the Garden of Moonlight was the third solo exhibition by Ray Caesar at the Jonathon LeVine Gallery last summer. Caesar used to work in the Art and Photography Department of The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto for 17 years which I found most interesting when contemplating his work due to the co-existence of realism and surrealism in the spaces he created. Dark truths make themselves subtely apparent and roles are reversed, perhaps giving the victim of real life crimes a chance to avenge his/herself and find some little justice. For example, in Side Saddle I see a girl who perhaps in reality was a victim of child abuse, but in the piece she is able to reign in her abuser. I also really enjoy the creepy quality that lingers about the images - very Frida Kahlo.

All of Caesar's images are digitally created and when I first saw one of his pieces I thought it was a photograph. "Using a 3D modeling software called Maya, he builds models and wraps them in painted and manipulated texture maps. The models are set up with an invisible skeleton that allows him to pose each figure in a 3D environment. Digital lights and cameras are added to simulate shadows and reflections, completing the effect of a mysterious and strange alternate world. (www.jonathonlevinegallery.com)"