Robert Longo: Children of Nyx

These are not photographs. Robert Longo's charcoal drawings are incredibly life-like -- and huge (note the scale in the second photo, where you can see the first photo reflected, along with other gallery-goers).

His latest show, called "Children of Nyx," is a small group of drawings of children and infants. The children all seem to be asleep, eyes closed and lips slightly parted. Seeing these kids is like seeing a movie theater from the outside. You can only guess at the dreams inside.

Nyx was the Greek goddess of the night and creation, mother of Sleep and Death. Longo's drawings capture these associations perfectly.

The children are slightly unsettling. Their faces are luminous but surrounded by a coal black, as if they're being seen by flashlight. The black void, combined with the six-foot scale of these drawings, makes them suggestive and towering and slightly ominous. What seems peaceful at first can become precious, precarious, in danger. Is this what it feels like to have children?

Robert Longo at Metro Pictures, NYC, through Dec. 8.