Ray Caesar

Ray Caesar (b. October 26, 1958) is a visual surreal artist and digital painter residing in Toronto, Canada. As he wrote about himself "I was born in London, England on October 26 1958, the youngest of four and much to my parent's surprise, I was born a dog". Caesar’s family moved to Canada after "some trouble with intolerant neighbours".

Graduating from the Ontario College of Art & Design, Caesar went on to work in the Art and Photography department of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where he has documented various child inflictions in sketches. This gruesome experience has enabled Caesar to create surreal landscapes and models with very detailed photographic textures.

He painted mostly little girls. But accordingly to his words "Actually they are not all little girls. Many of them are little boys too such as the Prince of Truth, Castor and Pollux, Harvest and many of them are boys in dresses ( boys were often dressed this way before the 20th century and I had two older sister that had no end of fun dressing me up)". "People think I paint pictures of children… I don’t! I paint pictures of the human soul… that alluring image of the hidden part of ourselves… some call them ghosts or spirits but I see them as the image of who we truly are, made manifest with all the objects and bruises that filled the story of each life."

"My work is mainly about the Archetype of the Divine Child… the Christ figure in all its forms as to me this represents spiritual growth. The children in my work are actually a form of self portrait and as an artist the feminine is a more accurate picture of the nature of the soul… of my soul… that which gives birth to creation."

The most incredible thing about Caesar’s work is that they are digital. At first glance, they look like paintings but Caesar creates his dream-like images with a 3D modeling software called Maya.