Last night, Holly and I checked out the new Ray Caesar show, “A Dangerous Inclination,” at Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City.
I’ve been immediately drawn to Ray Caesar’s art for it’s surface effect; just the mere ethereal quality of his pieces that draw on this fanciful and equally dark emotion are compelling enough. But when you take the time to fully appreciate his art, looking deeper into the fine details, the veins through translucent skin, hidden clocks and scissors, tentacles hiding behind figures… Ray Caesar’s work takes on a completely different meaning.
Most of his works are manifestations of his psyche after living a strange and twisted life under a psychotic father and working in a children’s hospital documenting child abuse and surgical reconstruction cases. Caesar uses his art to exorcise his childhood demons, it’s his therapy, and it unfolds into beautiful narratives.
This is my favorite from the exhibition’s collection of 30 pieces. “Death of an Unfaithful Still Life” lacks a human subject, which is rare for Ray Caesar and a new direction for the artist, but the story is just as revealing and haunting as his better-known works.
Ray Caesar uses 3-D modeling software (Maya) to create these images.
Holly’s a huge Ray Caesar fan, pretty obsessed actually. She has a “Returns of the Day” in her house.
A lot of his pieces feature these weird curly ends on the figures and objects. They’re an allusion to being forced to massage his dad’s toes everyday as a kid. Bummer.
Look at the amount of detail that goes into these images, see how he works through the diaphanous veil?
And notice the texture of the fabric.
I call this one the “Al Bundy.”
“A Dangerous Inclination” stays up at Corey Helford until November 12th. Next show up is Ron English!
by bobbyhundreds