Art review: Surreal cityscapes defy gravity in Canton exhibit
Artists work to interpret and share subjects and ideas that inspire them. It’s been said that “you paint what you know,” and certainly that is true for the majority of artists, painters or otherwise. How an artist works to look, understand and “know” a chosen subject is a special experience unique to each person.
Northeast Ohio artist Amy Casey finds inspiration in the places where she has lived, including Cleveland, her home for 20 years.
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“For some time, I have been working on an evolving series of cityscapes that reflect my view of the world as a mutable, uneasy construction,” Casey notes. “Using real buildings and elements of the landscape as blocks, I build and rebuild my own cities in painstaking, meditative detail, tinkering with them to try to make sense of the world. … Though I hope for the best, my paintings frequently express my anxiety for society and our world.”
“Continued Continuing: Paintings by Amy Casey,” on view at the Canton Museum of Art through Oct. 30, is an intimate look at the artist’s work. Featuring mostly large-scale acrylic paintings on paper, this exhibit captures and holds your attention through whimsical-yet-poignant narrative paintings. While open to interpretation, each work tells a special story that is incredibly detailed and abundantly familiar.
“Rigging” is a 2008 acrylic on paper that features a mass of houses tethered together with rope to a larger warehouse and factory structure base. The homes float like a bunch of balloons within a white background. As one might expect with a mass of floating homes, the ropes holding them together bend and appear to sway.
The artist has created homes that look as though they might be moving away from the central parts of the composition at a more rapid rate than the rest of the featured structures, while some are moving slower. This creates an obvious tension within the work and helps give a sense of movement and even a vertigo-like quality to the painting.
“City Wall” is a 2009 work that features structures and parts of a city stacked or piled on top of one another. Different types of walls that have been built with different material wind their way through the divergent city buildings up and down the “stack.” Long, thin stick- or stilt-like elements are copiously used throughout the composition and appear to be propping up different structures as needed. The silt elements help to emphasize the precarious nature of the buildings and tell a narrative while creating a visceral and emotional response.
“Everything Is Fine” is a 2022 acrylic painting on paper that highlights some new directions in Casey’s paintings. Here the artist has used her familiar buildings, but instead of showing them active and alive, these structures are defunct or dead and piled up in mounds like a mountainscape that dominates the background of the picture plain.
In the midground, the buildings show some familiar detail and color, but for the most part, are still derelict. In the foreground are tree stumps upon which mushrooms are growing. There is even some new growth of trees and plants.
This work does not have the feeling of direct commentary. However, it does seem to be telling us that although things might decay, fall away or topple, there is still a possibility that something can grow on top despite the circumstances.
Importantly, this exhibit came about from the Canton Museum of Art’s participation in the CAN Triennial. The museum reviewed the work featured in the 2018 Triennial and offered Casey a show that was originally supposed to take place in 2020, but it got delayed until this year because of the pandemic.
“When we saw Amy Casey’s work, we knew that she would be a great fit at our museum,” curators note at the exhibit. “Amy’s work has a unique voice; it is as if a part of Amy has been infused into each piece that she creates. A story tumbles out of each building, house, and vine, and causes you to ponder its meaning. The Canton Museum of Art is pleased to share Amy Casey’s work with its community, and to support a local artist.”
Of course, Casey is represented by galleries in New York and Chicago and has reached far beyond Northeast Ohio with her work. Still, it is wonderful to see the museum highlighting regional talent like it always has and supporting the CAN Triennial.
Anderson Turner is director of the Kent State University School of Art collection and galleries. Contact him at haturner3@gmail.com.
Details
Exhibit: “Continued Continuing: Paintings by Amy Casey” through Oct. 30
Place: Canton Museum of Art, 1001 Market Ave. N., Canton
Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $8 for adults; $6 for seniors, students and military veterans; free for museum members and children 12 or younger. Free admission every Thursday and the first Friday of each month
More info: 330-453-7666 or https://www.cantonart.org/
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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Canton Museum of Art exhibit
