Ray Caesar
An exploration of the strange, provocative word of an extraordinary contemporary artist
Freakish, fantastical but what wonderful art!
Do you agree?
Ray Caesar
'I drew pictures and sculpted in Plasticine as a child. I remember creating dioramas with my sister's dolls and using tinfoil to reshape parts of their bodies. I have very fond memories of sitting alone in a room with an assortment of materials and tools like hard paper from packs of my mother's stockings and twisting the paper and using a stapler and tape to create some very strange constructions.'
'I have worked in some form of creative profession all my life, with and without a computer. I just see it as a medium to create the images in my head that have been there festering since my first attempts at making pictures or objects as a child.'
'I think the drive to create makes us use tools at hand ...... I can draw and paint and sculpt just as well as I do on a computer .... because if I couldn't ... I wouldn't be able to do it on a computer either. Anyone who thinks they can create better images on a computer rather than with other tools just doesn't know how to use the other tools. The pictures come from a place within... the tools bring the pictures out.'
'I worked in a photographic department [at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto] as a medical artist for 17 years ... which meant I created a wide range of graphics, information and teaching material and exhibits. …You tend to see a lot in this kind of job as one day you might be printing images of child abuse or the next day sifting through the wires and tubes keeping a premature infant alive to create a technical diagram for nurses to use as a teaching tool.'
'Like a lot of hospital workers I thought I had seen it all and thought I had pretty much built a fine tuned armor against the injustices of man and nature ... but that eventually proved to be wrong as one day I saw a series of forensic images that knocked me to my knees ... I left soon after that I suppose as those images challenged me to start another journey. Perhaps I began to understand the emotional power within a single image.'
'Children's hospitals and hospitals in general are sometimes places of sadness.... but also places of tireless miracles that are a testament to the fine people who work to end the suffering of others.'
'I see my figures as calm ... I see them without fear, with a secret knowing and even humor. I think they are happy and they are challenging us to see them as they are!'
'I believe we need to evolve more empathy in our species ...... to not be paralyzed by fear and not allow that fear to cause hate.
I think we need to observe the things that people endure and acknowledge that our observation of their suffering should encourage us to approach our fears with calm resolve.'
'To be able to look at difference and not turn away in pity or revulsion or fear. I believe we are all very different in our minds eye than what we appear in a mirror.'
'Try closing your eyes and feel the unique shape of your sensual spiritual self and you might be surprised. Everyday I try to rise above those challenges of pain and fear and hate and make the attempt to "overcome"....... I believe that is what I saw in that children's hospital all those years ago ... from the sick children, the worried loving parents, to the doctors and surgeons and nurses... I saw the shear tireless human will to "overcome" adversity. I think that is what makes life more "real".'
'I have been using [3D software] for about 10 years and its just been a gradual process of jumping hurdles and getting to know it well enough to use it without having to think about it. I am still learning it and always will be as its not a static tool .. its changing everyday.'
'I am trying to reflect an emotional subconscious reality, a mood or feeling that I can't put into words so I make a three dimensional model and image instead. I use this tool because I love the endless possibilities not just of what it can do but what this tool can become.'
'I see much of my work as a self portrait of both of [myself and my wife Jane] as children.... we have been together for over 30 years ... I met her when I was 15. The images are also reflections of my mother and sister who appeared as children to me after they died.
'In some ways I am digging up and purging some raw material from my past, my subconscious and dreamworlds but there is also a feeling of "building" and "creating" something. The pleasure doesn't come from getting rid of ... or purging a thing but making something with all that raw material. Making something I can see... that I can touch and turn and examine.... give life too! That's the need or drive to my work..... it sort of has a Frankenstein quality about it, doesn't it?'
'There is a deep subconscious part of myself that is telling me stories every night as I sleep and I love to listen to those stories..... even if they are a teeny bit frightening.'
Footnote
The above is taken from a conversation between Ray Caesar and Adam Szrotek and Sylwia Banasiak, first published on Webesteem Art and Design
For direct access to the article in full, click on the link below:
For direct access to Ray Caesar's official (and very elegant) website, click on the link below:
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