Ray Caesar was born in London, England in 1958. He describes his childhood art as “atypical and aberrant” as it was unlike the bright pop art of the 60s and 70s. Drawing inspiration from Classical, Baroque and Romantic era paintings, Caesar creates fantasy scenes that include innocent young girls, sensual young women or ageless divas. Some of these feminine characters seem out of place in their antiquated world, posing in a manner that would have been very unseemly a century ago.
Caesar employs a surrealist style in his paintings, creating eerily realistic scenes in which bizarre things happen. This essence of reality adds to the spooky nature of Caesar’s paintings, bringing ideas, worries and bad dreams to life.
An unusual figure who occasionally appears in Caesar’s paintings is a wolf-headed man. Including this character in his art may be a way for Caesar to put himself into his paintings because his autobiography claims that much to his parents’ surprise he was born a dog. By standing on his hind legs and behaving like a human, Caesar was able to function in human society. Ray Caesar says, “I live in a brick house with my wonderful wife Jane and a coyote called Bonnie. I like eating avocados and I don’t really mind being a dog.”
Visit Ray Caesar’s website to see more of his art and to buy prints of his unusual paintings.
