Just in time for the holidays! The Ray Caesar Art Collection features 178 pages of the artist’s work, including sketches, studies and illustrations. Of specific interest are Caesar’s essays, describing his process. The work—sometimes dark and perverse, at times bright and fantastic—is meticulously detailed, obviously created with painstaking care, bringing peers such as Mark Ryden and Marion Peck—both noteable hyperrealist painters—to mind. Yet, it is surprising to most that Caesar is actually a digital artist, manipulating his images to create the illusion of texture and materiality. But the subjects are actually “sculpted” on his computer screen, pushed and pulled into shape using a mouse. The model becomes 3D and a skeleton is added, which allows his models the ability to move and pose, as well as absorb light and create shadow. The final steps are a coat of color, then a layer of texture. Caesar saves images of textures—wood surfaces, a close-up of skin, cloth, flower petals, etc.—to use in his work, to lend the digital image some warmth and realness. He says, “I collect textures the way some people collect little silver spoons, and I have a story about each texture in my collection.”
The book goes for $54, but is also available in a super luxe edition for those collectors in the audience. The $625 version features a signed copy of the book, only this time with a black linen hard cover, as well as a beautiful print of one the featured works and 6 collector’s cards. Go here to choose.
