Casey’s exhibit was among one of my favorites. Not because of the art, but because of the artist themself. This goes into the work however, because the artist’s speech about their life goes hand and hand with what they create. The artist attempts to capture the beauty in tumor-like protrusions. Something that would otherwise be seen as disgusting or defigured. And the artist also talks about their work in relation to their ego. He was somehow able to reach a point where what other people thought of his work and the reviews people published on his work didn’t affect it. Somehow he did the near impossible as an artist and manages to create art for the sake of creating art. Many artists (including myself) create art for some more egocentric reason such as fame or money. But like myself I get so caught up in the perception and even the unseen reward of the work to the point where I make myself miserable. But the artist is able to just do the artwork because it makes him happy. This is admirable because people should do what they want not for clout but because it fulfills their need for meaning. And just like nature the forms of his work are extremely organic. Its really interesting because in nature nothing is “perfect”. There are no spheres or cubes in nature. Those are all man made concepts. The artist even allowed for us to walk up to the sculptures and feel what the materials are that went into the sculpture. The artist works with wood which is a very difficult material to work with in terms of making very organic shapes like those despite wood ironically being organic itself. There’s something about Casey’s work that gives off the feeling of being artificial despite it being so organic. There is nothing symmetrical, or orderly about his works. It’s very chaotic. And yet in spite of that there is something very artificial about it. Perhaps it’s the colors. Colors rarely have abrupt changes to them. And there are several colors that don’t often appear in nature. Such as pink and cyan. Or at the very least they don’t interact with each other in the same way that his work does. This combination of artificial and organic gives off the feeling of something extremely alien. As such it feels like it belongs neither to man nor nature. His work feels like it belongs on a different planet or dimension.
