THE CAN FOUNDATION PRESENTS SM/ NYC: ROUGH DRAFT, A SOLO EXHIBITION BY THOMAS O’CASEY
June 3- September 3, 2023
The exhibition will feature 2 and 3d drawings, paintings, and wooden and found object sculptures made on the coasts of the United States. SM/NYC is an overview of over forty years of Thomas O’Caseys career.
The exhibition will be on view from June 3rd to September 3, 2023.
Below is a general descriptive statement of ‘SM/NYC: Rough Draft’, a Solo Exhibition by Thomas O’Casey, in the words of the artist.
Works from 1968-2021
*Floors are noted when applicable, although the themes and inspirations are found interwoven throughout the exhibition.
*1st Floor
[These] Artwork presentations are representative of my early travels of cross country; travels of the Eastern seacoast towns to the Western deserts. The visuals of riding over long desert roads, north and and south. The straight roads of endless highway signs, of culverts, bridges and endless painted markers and possible flooded crossings. Many in locations were always 'painted' different colors as they faded from time and wear and tear.
Many of the graphics/artwork here depict the colors and constant faded and repainted, repaired roadside signs. [During] war time my family moved between the East and West Coast constantly. Our living quarters were always roadside desert motels (etc). My father’s work was in organizing the testing and work of hundreds of German Scientists captured from the ending of WWII.
Found Object Sculptures
*2nd/3rd/4th Floors
Growing up in the western desert areas of California and Nevada presented a stark picture of a land panorama; the hot blue skies above and endless stripped surfaces of things we knew nothing of growing up until years later. My art was now new made from materials around me, mostly wood of the deserts and western forests.
In the sixties we sought out our own locations of new things happening going to schools, or places of art in new cities [that] we had access to as 'younger travelers on our 'Path'
We moved constantly to the East Coast, NYC and Washington DC, then back to the West, again and again.
Pyramid Paintings
*3rd Floor
I gravitated to galleries and places where things were 'new'. [The] cities and the art centers on both Coasts structured my work and the people in these new places.
My own work with Rocketdyne took me all over the world. Doing exhibits in Ireland, I was faced with connecting to a past I knew nothing of, so I traveled in Europe and all over Ireland, with nothing of finding. Monuments of past people/families in the forms of Monuments and Churches.
These structures or "CAIRNS". In the barren landscapes became ideas and format to my many stark images here in the presentation of this exhibit. The result of visiting many Irish locations of people trying to say WE ARE HERE or we WERE HERE as a group or clan of relatives now buried, not forgotten.
*A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound
One of my fondest visited iconic reminder of families in the past came from this search to a Sea Coast town of England called Brighton, a now decrepit seaside resort town that today has appeared worn down and 'seedy'. I visited [the place] for a month working in the early 1980's for Rocketdyne, presenting programs for cutting edge LASER technology
The aging piers, an almost reprint of my home in the US at that time (Santa Monica). [I was reminded of this] when discovering a quote by Noel Coward from 1930's, "Ahh Dear Brighton..."Piers, Queers and Racketers". Suddenly I am home again in Santa Monica, back in time, but not really. These structures, colors, represent an art piece of forgotten materials.
Viewed here on display, on these walls, all merge together as assets [50 years] in forms of the painted materials and collected structures that have become the memories of places I hardly knew but my past lived through. These remains of something of memories, many not mine but my past, my relatives, never known, represented in sculptures and colors of likeable material, forgotten on a barren coastal Irish seascape.
Thomas O’Casey Bio
Thomas O’Casey is an artist and art historian based in Virginia. Born in Pasadena, California, he spent much of his life on both coasts of the United States studying and working in and around the art and entertainment world. His work, like his life, is heavily influenced and inspired by location and relationship.
In 1961 O’Casey attended the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design where he studied painting. He enrolled at The Chouinard Art Institute in 1965 , a leading professional art school in Los Angeles, founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard. At Chouniard, O’Casey studied under and alongside master artists like Emerson Wolfer, Matsumi "Mike" Kanemitsu, and Jack Goldstein. After graduating from Chouinard, he spent a decade as an assistant to Nicholas Wilder, a premier art dealer and gallerist of LA that curated and dealt works of giants like David Hockney and Ed Ruscha. During his time with Wilder, O’Casey was heavily involved in the execution of exhibitions of masters like Cy Twombly and Agnes Martin, to name a few. Additionally, he worked in various capacities for Wilder’s East Coast counterpart, Leo Castelli.
Throughout the 70s O’Casey dealt in artist management with Geffen-Roberts and Stax Records, assisting a roster of music greats like Issac Hayes.
He went on to organize and curate exhibitions for Rocketdyne (a subsidiary of North American Aviation) for the next 10 years. He spent an additional 20 years curating and managing exhibitions for NASA.
A co-founder of the CAN, O’Casey is currently a studio artist and art historian based in Virginia. His work is influenced and inspired by the locations in which he lived and traveled. From the deserts to Carmel, Big Sur, Monterey, and San Francisco in California, to NY, DC, and Virginia on the opposite coast, the places, and the materials found within them, informed his work. Amidst all the travel, studies, and making, there existed relationships and connections; personal associations with art world giants who acted as models to O’Casey and taught the artist about discipline, greatness, and how to approach ideas and turn them into meaningful works of art.