Siren, 2012, Ray Caesar

 The girls Ray Caesar portrays rivals those of Mark Ryden in their resilience, vulnerability, and ferocity. Caesar portrays their hurts and betrayals but also sends them into the realm of the monstrous, where he keeps them safe and reveals the deeper afflictions of a culture, which continues to harm our young through abuse, isolation, and sexualization. But there is a stunning beauty and luminosity to his work that keeps our own gazed trapped even as we are disturbed by what we see. To read my full article, visit Weird Fiction Review.

Image credit: Ray Caesar/Gallery House”

An acquaintance of mine, Stephen Graham Jones, also published a great essay, I Was Genre When Genre Wasn’t Cool, that I think everyone should go read.

My art catalogue piece for Xi Zhang’s show is mostly done. Just some more fine tuning, and then off it goes. By the way, Xi’s piece about 9/11 was featured on CNN.com and he’ll be giving an artist talk at  the Denver Art Museum on October 26th, 7 pm. If you’re in the area, do come!

The blog posts have been somewhat scarce, I know, but look for some steady writing from me late September or early October, as I’ll be previewing different artists from Carrie Ann Baade’s Cute and Creepy Show (including Ray Caesar, whose Descent appears on the left). Would love to see many familiar faces at my lecture and gallery walk. I promise you, it won’t boring.