Cody Gallery proudly presents “Spring Rush,” a solo exhibition by Baltimore artist Carolyn Case featuring large-scale abstract oil paintings and small relief sculptures combining glazed stoneware with fragments of pastel drawings.
An important part of Case’s artistic content is to “extend the tactility of chaos” that she celebrates in daily life. Her process begins with creating large chalk pastel drawings in rapid response to her visual and internal world. Rather than regarding the drawings as finished works, she uses them as springboards. The speed of the drawings infuses the usually slower process of oil painting with purposeful high energy. For her relief sculptures, she cuts small sections from the matte pastel drawings, surrounding them with related everyday forms in shiny stoneware.
As Case writes, “My painting and ceramics practice draws from the chaos of domestic life, inspired by the layered residue, accumulated mess, and kinetic energy of my home. The house, the kitchen, the mess conjure my mystical space. I use the disorder as a catalyst for celebration and rebellion. The muck in the bottom of my sink becomes a low relief tableau of the mayhem from dinner. Bits of fringe, wrought iron, writing, and dishes become clues of the day’s events. Five years ago, this impulse expanded outdoors. After reading about the collapse of bird and insect populations, I removed my suburban lawn and planted a large native meadow. Now, my yard overflows with six-foot towers of flowers, armies of fireflies, snakes, turtles, and loud toads. I use my daily life and the vocabulary of touch, color, and space to process how family routines connect to the sublime. I repurpose repetitive domestic duties as a base for my work’s intuitive path. I react through call and response, looking for the world’s magic and refusing to succumb to the overbearing call for order. My work treasures the quotidian mess, mining it and elevating it, and above all, pushing back against sterility and order. This debris becomes a joyful reminder of living.”
Carolyn Case lives and works in Baltimore, MD, where she teaches at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art). She holds an MFA from MICA’s Mount Royal School of Art and a BFA from California State University, Long Beach. Her work is held in the permanent collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Case has mounted solo exhibitions at Taymour Grahne Projects in London, Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York City, Western Michigan University, and the Lux Art Institute. Her work has also been presented in group and two-person exhibitions at venues including La Loma Projects in Los Angeles, Art in Embassies at the U.S. Embassy in Managua, Nicaragua, and BWI Airport in Baltimore, among others. She has completed residencies at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, the Kanoria Centre for the Arts, and School 33 Art Center, among others. Her work has been reviewed and featured in publications including Artforum, ARTnews, New American Paintings, Two Coats of Paint, and The Baltimore Sun.