Roq La Rue gallery in Seattle has a two-artist show opening on September 10, featuring the work of artists Ray Caesar and Amy Hill. Both artists are terrific.
Ray Caesar creates fantastical, grimly hopeful and gravely whimsical images of wizened children who radiate an enigmatic serenity. Sprouting bio-mechanical limbs and appendages, the figures are otherworldly, a melding of sci fi fantasy, lush landscapes, and Victorian sensibilities. Ray's work is astonishing in the fact it is all digitally created, most people assume they are looking at paintings due to the seamless blending and "painterly quality" of the work as well as its unique emotional impact. Creating models in a 3D modeling software he then wraps them in painted and manipulated texture maps. Each model is set up with an invisible skeleton that allows him to pose each figure in its 3D enviroment.
Amy Hill paints with a notoriously difficult Dutch Renaissance technique, using formality in the execution and opting for non-conventionality in her subject matter. In her newest series, Amy has painted a series of classic movie monsters as businessmen in suits. Earthy, luminous portraits are painted in tones perfect for the discriminating boardroom, as repulsive monsters are lovingly painted and renamed with "normal" societially accepted names. Funny, yet thought provoking, the initial assumption of "businessmen as monsters" begins to expand as the viewer considers what the artist might actually be implying. Amy will be showing her entire series of oil on panel Monster paintings.
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