You may have seen a post I put up early last week, Hidden Drawer. The title is a reference to a phenomenon that artist Ray Caesar uses. I will let him explain, as he was nice enough to answer a few questions for me.
Please explain your process and why you choose to work this way.
I have worked with many kinds of media over the years and much of that was paint and sculpture. I began working on imagery with the computer back in 1984 ( I am 51 years old ) and much of my adult life has progressed with image making as computers have progressed. I have been using 3D modeling software since it was first made available and back then saw a great deal of potential in making imagery. I now use Maya to make my work and it suits me very well as I tend to think in 3 dimensions even when I am drawing or painting. I worked for 17 years in a Children's hospital in a photographic dept that documented Child abuse, reconstructive surgery and animal research and during those years I made art as a way of dealing with the difficulties of what I saw in that job. It was not the easiest place for me to work as I had a very difficult childhood myself for which I am now still in therapy. Much of what I did in the way of medical imagery at the hospital was done with computers so the method of using them for imagery became almost second nature to me. I also worked for some years in the film industry as a computer animator and digital matt painter and that helped me truly understand Maya and what I needed to know to create movable animated figures in virtual environments. About ten years ago I lost several people in my family to cancer and after some very strange lucid dreams and frightening bouts of sleep paralysis ...and what doctors and therapists call "hallucinations" ... I quit my job and just started to make these images. I always made art in some form or another but these images culminated in something I couldn't ignore. I always hated showing my work but I felt obligated to send them to a gallery and since that day my life has changed dramatically.
I read that building these images the way you do allows you to “hide” things in the pictures, could you talk about that a little?
Yes. It's what I love about digital models and images as I can build a cabinet with a drawer and in that closed drawer I can put a music box and in that music box I can put a locket and in that locket I can place a photo folded piece of paper with a letter on that I wrote to my departed sister. I cannot explain why that is important to me but it is and it feels like an energy I can place in an object that transcends the image itself. It is like burying a treasure that may or may not ever be found...a mystery that you can hint at in the image but not give away the secret. I feel it's like a dream that is a message from your subconscious to your conscious mind and that even though you forget the dream as you wake the hint of its memory is still there with you thru the day. It’s like cleaning a room but a part of you has to clean the closet too as even though it’s hidden the room doesn’t feel clean otherwise. Every time I see a piece of my work in a gallery and I see the cabinet with a drawer and know that inside is a box with a locket with a letter and photo of my sister ... I feel she is still there with me just waiting in that strange calm peaceful world I have made for her.
The pictures you create have a strong identity, could you talk about your choice of symbolism, imagery, and how they affect that identity?
As I mentioned I grew up in a very difficult and dangerous environment as a child. I developed a kind of trauma and panic disorder ( a kind of agoraphobia ) and more fundamentally a kind of dissociative identity disorder ...sort of like multiple personalities but not in its severest form ... I tend to know my disassociations as I also developed a strange kind of hyper awareness because I was able to draw pictures of them in such great detail. In essence I developed a very powerful coping method that worked extremely well as a child but it can be very difficult for the adult. Art and making pictures is central to all of this. Art was the one place all the diverse aspects of my personality came together ... as a child I drew myself into a world that was safe and pictures became the one place I could escape ... in a way it was my first virtual space and when I first discovered 3D software I began to build that sanctuary I began as a child. When I was very young I began a hatred of men and their small minded petty selfishness that preys on anything smaller and weaker than themselves for their own self-gratification. I began to hate every aspect of maleness in myself ...at the age of ten I began dressing as a girl and wearing bat masks and sneaking out at night carry knives and weapons ...I was fascinated with swords. I began to become a very dangerous little individual and would often climb to the roof of my apt building at 3am sitting on the ledge...I was very very angry ... it was a very difficult time and I learned that monsters can have children and make even worse monsters..I began to become afraid of what I might grow into ...I used to look at myself in the mirror and saw some other possible aspect of who I was ... another side of me...something more dangerous and ferile...as I looked in the mirror the one thing that saved me was that I had to make a picture of what I saw and it was in that world of pictures that helped me manage. A few years later at 15 in 1974 I met a girl I eventually married ...Michiko...her family was Japanese and her father was a quiet man who had been in a Russian prison camp during world war two. This man was kind and quiet and gentle very hard working and thru him I began to accept the idea of a different kind of man ...I had never met a man like him before and thru him I was able to build another aspect of my own personality that was stronger and calmer than the others. It also helped that he knew a lot about kendo and loved swords as much as I did. I married Michiko and we have been together for a very happy 36 years. Life changed for me and with it a world of very dangerous aspects of my personality where safe in the world of pictures.
How much of your work is intuition, how much is calculation, and is any of it therapy?
It's all Intuition and not much at of it is calculation ... that doesn't seem to work for me even though I sometimes try to build a formula into what I do ... the minute I do it seems to collapse. Intuition and working without thinking ahead of myself works best. I do this when I meditate too, as during that time I speak in voices that don't seem my own and they have very sound very calm advice. I have done this in therapy and it’s agreed that the voices seem to help me and often have a rather profound message. Some people call this channeling but I choose to not have an explanation for it ...( although I do believe the voices are not entirely my own as they are sometimes frighteningly pre-cognicient to do with future events ).. it’s a very intuitive thing and I also use it when I draw ... I just let my hand move on the page and before I know it I have pages and pages of drawings. I find its easier to draw this way in public ..Ha! I do it in Starbucks each morning with a Grande Americano and I often feel myself using the energy of those sitting around me. It sounds strange but I believe there are some very strange things that don't need an explanation ... and art is one of those things and love and music. It's all part of the irrational that if held the right way and balanced with the rational can be a very useful thing. I have done a lot of Psychotherapy over the years and I am still struggling with issues of my child hood but without art I would have been lost. It is the core of my self and it has helped me make that core of myself creative rather than destructive. I am not really sure what "Art" is but to me it's the creative aspect of our growing soul and a healing aspect of our soul. In life I believe the two greatest endeavors are to be creative and heal in whatever you do.
Where do you feel the viewer fits into your work?
My work begins as a form of communication from my subconscious to my conscious. It's a dialogue from the hidden mysterious part of my mind to the part we think of as aware and in the here and now....but these two parts of our minds must find communication. For me as a child it was the only way I was allowed to communicate emotion. It's this place of inner dialogue that I feel the viewer takes part in also. If they see this conversation between my subconscious and my conscious mind then they also intuitively feel and hear their own inner voice. Something speaks to them.
Millennia ago a man may have gone on a hunt and felled a giant beast and thru agony and pain and rage and pushing himself beyond what he could never imagine he drags the kill back to a cave and it is ripped apart as the tribe eats ...he has no words and he is full of an energy he cannot explain and he is not satisfied and begins to draw a picture on a cave wall with charcoal and blood and shit ... he scratches out everything he felt in rudimentary pictures. His rage his pain his triumph ..another person walks forward with no words and touches the picture and tries to scream .."I know this feeling"... "I feel this too" ....pictures, or art or what we make were our first ways of communicating our emotions and in some way I still think its the best way.
Do you listen to music while you work, if so what? Is there an artist or an album that can put you into the mode to work?
I listen to Eric Satie and Bach and Chopin, I also listen to Jazz ... Mile Davis, Jobim, Harry Allen, Gene Krupa, Charles Mingus Gene Amons... I listen to Japanese Minyo and Enka, Electronic Trance and Dance such as Infernal, Lady Gaga, Special D, Basshunter, Goldfrapp, I also listen to a lot of Brit music like Lily Allen, Duffy and Amy Whinehouse. I sometimes like working in silence and sometimes my voices speak out as I work and they help me work thru things ... but mostly I like the sounds of the street below where I live ... the echo is strange distant voices sometimes seem very close and you can often hear the oddest things.
Do you sketch? What is that like?
I sketch all the time and almost always in ink and its very much its own thing. I can draw very tidy and neatly and with great detail not too different from the models I build on the computer but my sketching is raw and rough and a little wild...I think it has a lot of movement ...I love to sketch and do it every day usually in a very public place like starbucks ...it has to be outside amongst many people for some reason.
I have a few pieces on my website but in truth I have 40 or 50 moleskins and sketchbooks crammed with 4 decades of obsessive drawings ...some sketchbooks are so old I have to tape them together
Thank you very much for your time and energy Ray. For a look at more of his work please visit Ray’s amazing website: raycaesar.com.
